Growing Up, Growing Back Down
by OneHarperLee
Summary: Ever wonder how Quinn went from prim and proper head Cheerio, to Skank, to Yale matriculant? Or how Sam went from sweet, innocent, sci-fi nerd to world weary stripper? Me too, RIB, me too. In this story, I'll try to connect the dots for you.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

**Ever wonder how Quinn went from prim and proper head Cheerio, to Skank, to Yale matriculant? Or how Sam went from sweet, innocent, sci-fi nerd to world weary stripper? Me too, RIB, me too. Well, if you think more than two minutes of screen time were necessary to play out these insane personality changes, this story is going to attempt to connect the dots for you.**

**Hey guys, thanks for being patient! Here's the first installment of my new story. It's not the story I planned on writing next, but I wanted to do something that's 95% happy. The angsty story can wait to be next in line. I want to give a quick warning that, in this story, Quinn will be much closer to canon Quinn than in my last story, meaning that I'll try to work through some of her, shall we say, "complexities." Sam will mostly be canon Sam, although probably a bit smarter, just because it's hard to tell a story from his point of view if he's not meant to have coherent thoughts. Although I guess they've technically given up on moron Sam, since season 3 Sam seems to be some great bearer of wisdom and truth. Anyway, I realize that Fabrevans people and Samcedes people will most likely both dislike this chapter, but try to hang on . . . it had to start somewhere.**

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Sam stared out into the pitch black night, focusing desperately on the double yellow lines weaving ahead of him like eels through the an impenetrable sea. He clutched the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were turning white with the pressure. His hands shook, but he braced himself and battled the urge to allow himself to fall to pieces. At least until he wasn't operating a moving vehicle.

Arriving at the small, two bedroom bungalow he now called home, he eased the pickup to a stop along the curb. It was just past 1:00 in the morning, and his family would already be sleeping. On a normal day, he had a couple hours between football practice and work to get as much homework done as he could, but he usually needed the hour from 1:00 to 2:00 to finish up. He could then sleep from 2:00 to 6:30, when he'd get up, force down some coffee he didn't even like the taste of, and try to do it all again. There was no way he'd be doing that extra hour of work tonight, and he'd be lucky if he got the few hours of sleep.

Still sitting in the driver's seat, Sam leaned his head down against the wheel, running his hands through his short blond hair. He had been fine up until a few hours ago. Didn't have the time, the energy, or the desire to think about who or what he had become. Who was she to barge into his life again and question him? Who was he, really? And for that matter, who was she? When had it all gotten like this?

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Somebody, he couldn't quite remember who anymore, had called them Ken and Barbie once. It was probably just because they were both blonde, maybe because they were both attractive, or because they both smiled all the time. At the time, he remembered taking it as a compliment. Whoever had said it thought he and Quinn were perfect. Perfect to a fault, and perfect together. But now he saw the comment (was it Rachel who said it?) for the cruel insult it really was. And it was at least half true. He could see that now, and it broke his heart.

Sam watched her sway from across the room. In her ice blue gown, she looked like a fairy princess. Her blonde hair was pinned up in curls, and tiny diamond chips glittered on her ears when she turned her face into the light. Her eyes, framed by long, painted lashes, were dark and sparkling in the soft light. Her glossy pink lips were curved to reveal her bright, unwavering smile. And her arms were wrapped daintily around the neck of Finn Hudson, who was busy stealing glances across the room at Rachel Berry.

She must have noticed, Sam thought. It had been clear as day to everyone around them that, once the high of stealing kisses in the hallways and behind backs had passed away, Finn was back to being in love with Rachel. He was infatuated with Quinn, as was half the school. But he was in love with Rachel. If Quinn knew that, though, she wasn't going to let on that it bothered her. Or maybe it really didn't bother her, Sam thought. After all, Finn was really just a prop to her. Maybe that's all he ever was to her, too.

He had felt it happening sometime around Valentine's Day. He believed that Quinn was attracted to him, but eventually he had started to realize that Quinn was attracted to the fact that other people were attracted to him. He had once heard her say that she was doing everything she could to rehabilitate her image, including dating the hottest guy at school. He guessed that was what he had going for him. He wasn't terribly smart, and he was new to McKinley so he wasn't all that popular either, but he was pretty. Being pretty apparently put him at the very top of the social hierarchy, at least in Quinn's eyes. And that only lasted until Finn quarterbacked a district championship team. Then Finn was more popular than Sam was attractive, and all the sudden it was Finn who looked like the perfect candidate to provide Quinn with what she really wanted. And what she really wanted wasn't love, or companionship, or even friendship. It was popularity and a plastic crown. A plastic crown to go with her plastic smile.

Sam wondered if he hadn't gotten injured, if he had still been the quarterback and led the Titans to that championship himself, if Quinn would have ever given Finn a second glance. The two of them really could have been Ken and Barbie, with the prom king and queen titles to match. Sam shook his head, forcing himself to stop. Was that really what he wanted? Maybe this was all for the best. Maybe now he could find a girl who liked him for the things he actually did have to offer—thoughtfulness, attentiveness, and a gentle soul—instead of the fake image of a perfect, popular couple.

But what haunted him was that he knew there was a person in there, somewhere. A real person, and a good person. Sam tried to put aside the memories of how Quinn had treated him like a toy, an expendable toy, and how he saw her treat other people at school, her friends included. He tried to force away the image of her plastered on smile as she bounced around chanting "Vote Hudson/Fabray!" Instead, he tried to focus on the girl he saw playing with his little brother and sister.

Quinn didn't have to come over to the motel room. She didn't have to do any of that. He had begged her to keep his home life a secret, and she had for months, so it wasn't like she was showcasing her generosity to win over more votes for prom queen. They weren't dating anymore, so she wasn't doing it out of some sense of obligation to him as her boyfriend. Still, without any good reason, Quinn came over after church every Sunday to braid Stacy's hair and paint her nails and play dress up while Sam took Stevie to the park to play catch. She came over a few nights a week to help the kids with their homework while Sam was out delivering pizzas. And she did it all while staying a faithful girlfriend to Finn and a loyal friend to Sam.

That's why Sam couldn't buy it when people called Quinn Fabray a bitch. Or even when they called her Barbie. She didn't show herself to the world. She didn't show herself to Sam, to Finn, or even to her best girlfriends, but he knew she was in there. Maybe if he could get her to open up to him he could—

"No. No, not this time," Sam thought.

He had been through this so many times in his head since he found out she was cheating, too many times. And he wasn't going to let Quinn and the "what ifs" ruin prom. Rachel and Mercedes had been very generous in asking him to be their prom date, and even supplying him with the loan so that he could afford to take them. Since Jesse St. James had suddenly returned, Rachel was pretty preoccupied, but he still had another date he was supposed to be taking care of tonight.

He turned away from the sight of Quinn's perfect smile flickering slightly every time Finn stomped one of her feet and sought out Mercedes in the crowd. She was sitting at one of the tables, looking glum. She looked beautiful all dressed up with her hair in loose curls and her lip gloss shining in the light. He wondered if anyone ever told her how amazing she looked, or if those compliments were only reserved for girls like Quinn who commanded them. Well, his date deserved to feel special, and he was determined that she would get it from him.

Shuffling his way through the crowd, Sam came to a stop in front of her table. Her dark skin was soft in the glow of the candles occupying the center of the table. She was distracted, absentmindedly watching as the girl alongside of her tapped out a text.

"Mercedes?"

She looked up at him suddenly, caught of guard by his presence. He flashed her a giant smile. He knew he looked stupid in his dad's suit and his bolo tie with his too-long hair, but he knew he still had his smile to work with. A small smile tugged at the corner of her lips as she waited for him to speak, and he knew he had won her over.

"I just wanted to tell you that you look beautiful tonight," he stretched out his hand to her. "Would you like to dance?"

She paused for a moment, inspecting his open hand as if he might be planning to trick her. Her brow furrowed slightly and her lips tensed. Was she really that jaded? Sam was starting to worry that she was going to say no when she slipped her small hand into his and nodded excitedly.

"I'd love to."

He smiled again and helped her from her seat, placing a hand on the small of her back and leading her out onto the floor. She looked up at him nervously as the speakers carried the opening strains of Rachel's ballad. Tentatively, she reached her hands up and laid them against his shoulders. Sam wasn't sure what to do. If it had been Quinn, or any other girl for that matter, he would have wrapped his arms around her waist, pulled her close, and rocked her against him to the rhythm of the song. But Mercedes seemed so unsure of herself. So unsure of them. He wasn't sure if it was him specifically who made her so uncomfortable, or if it was the idea of being so close to a boy. He tried to think, and never recalled Mercedes really dating anyone. Had she ever been on a real date? Had she ever been kissed? Sam scolded himself for thinking such random, stupid thoughts. He held his hands up awkwardly.

"Is it ok, um, can I, um, put my hands here?" he asked, brushing his fingertips over the satin at Mercedes' waist.

Mercedes paused again, then nodded shyly. He moved his hands to rest on her waist, holding them stiffly so they wouldn't slip around her back, making her think he wasn't a gentleman. She, too, was stiff under his touch. They moved slowly and awkwardly, swaying to the music, looking anywhere but at each other. He couldn't tell if she was afraid he would hurt her and was guarding herself against him or if she was just nervous about his hands on her. He wanted her to have a good time. The last thing he wanted was to prevent her from enjoying the prom because he made her uncomfortable. He lowered his face to brush his nose into her soft curls in a gesture he hoped would calm her.

It seemed to work, because eventually, she softened, relaxing into his arms. Her arms encircled his neck, and her fingers played with the ends of his hair. Feeling her relax, Sam allowed himself to calm down too, unfreezing his arms and wrapping them gently around her. She leaned her body into him, resting her cheek against his chest as his chin found its way to the top of her head. She felt soft and full and substantial against him. So unlike Quinn. Not better or worse, just different. He kicked himself again for allowing Quinn to invade his thoughts and moved a hand up to Mercedes' hair, holding her gently against his chest. He looked down at her and smiled when he found her eyes closed. She really was beautiful, why didn't everyone tell her that? It wasn't fair, and Sam knew a little too much about life being unfair to let the opportunity to make someone feel good go to waste.

"You really are beautiful, ya know," he told her, giving voice to his thoughts, even if that voice was barely above a whisper.

She stiffened again, pausing, then looking up with him with wide eyes that looked like they were about to spill over.

"Don't lie to me, Sam Evans," she warned, her tone still and dead. In his confusion, Sam stopped moving altogether, but didn't relinquish his hold on her.

"Lie to you? I, I don't understand."

She, too, stopped moving and looked away, her arms like heavy chains around his neck.

"Nobody ever tells me that," she whispered. "I'm not anybody's idea of pretty. I'm not anybody's first choice. You dated Quinn, and you did whatever you did with Santana. Those girls are pretty. People tell them all the time, and they know they're beautiful," she paused.

"Look, I know I talk the talk of being a diva and being fierce, but it's hard to make myself feel that way when nobody ever says those things to me. I don't want you to say that to me because you're doing your Sam Evans nice guy schtick. I don't want you to say it if you don't mean it."

A frown tugged at the corners of Sam's lips. He understood insecurity. While Finn chowed down to the tune of two sloppy joes a day, Sam watched his diet, taking in only low-calorie, high nutrition staples, and worked out religiously. Some people thought he was vain when he constantly checked his abs for signs of developing fat, but really he was just tremendously critical of himself. Even now, when he couldn't really afford food, his biggest fear wasn't that he would starve, but that he would get fat from the pizza he was often forced to eat for lack of a better option. But then again, Sam had people constantly telling him that he was good looking to combat his insecurity. When he looked at himself in the mirror every morning, he knew that if he was feeling bad about the way he looked, there would be ten pairs of eyes at school to help him feel better. Deep down, Sam knew he wasn't as ugly as he often billed himself to be, and he cringed at the thought of what it would be like to have all those demons without the affirmation to fight them.

He looked down at Mercedes with her soft, round face and her chocolate eyes. His heart was breaking for her. Why were girls so hard on themselves? Or really, why was the world so hard on them? Did she really believe that the only qualities that counted as beauty were blonde hair, light colored eyes, and a slim figure? With the way the entire school worshipped Quinn, he guessed it wasn't hard to see why she believed that. Mercedes had a lot going for her. Her talent alone was mesmerizing and intimidating. But he knew what she meant by beautiful. She meant physically attractive. And she _was_ that, even if she didn't look a thing like Barbie.

"Mercedes, you _are_ beautiful. I don't lie to people, and I wouldn't lie to you about something like that. You deserve to feel beautiful just as much as Quinn and Santana do. They just get told more often because they put the fear of God in their boyfriends."

Mercedes smirked. "So you're saying I need to command more respect?"

"No," Sam stated, trying to hold back the forming grin, "It really is just fear."

A loud, quick booming followed by a screech cut through the room. Everyone stopped dancing and turned to the stage, where Figgins was trying to gather enough attention to announce prom king and queen. Sam was genuinely glad he wasn't up there. When he first moved to Ohio from Tennessee, he had wanted to be popular, but he was rapidly realizing the amount of stress it took to remain popular. Quinn was the perfect example; the cracks were beginning to show all over her façade. He realized that it wasn't popularity that he wanted, it was for people to like him. And that meant being a good person, not being the prom king.

From the stage, Figgins announced Dave Karofsky as prom king. Mercedes turned to him and raised her eyebrows. Given that Dave was one of the captains of the football team, it wasn't a completely shocking result, but still, Sam was a little surprised that it wasn't Finn accepting the crown. Apparently, Mercedes was too. Did that mean Santana was going to win prom queen? He wondered how Quinn would react.

"And your 2011 prom queen is," Figgins paused. If it was for effect, it was a little too long, because it was starting to make the entire room uncomfortable. Figgins looked back up to his captive audience from the tiny card he held in his hand, "Kurt Hummel."

Everyone froze. Mercedes' grip on Sam's hand tightened. A few people clapped. And just about the entire court that hadn't won, and even Kurt, who had won, sprinted out of the room. Blaine chased after Kurt, and Brittany ran off after Santana. Quinn sprinted off alone. Finn had already been removed from the dance for provoking a fight with Jesse (over Rachel, Sam couldn't help but add), but Sam wondered, if he had been around, if he would have bothered to catch up with Quinn anyway. Did he care about her enough to see how this would crush her?

Sam had to use all his will power to fight off the urge to run after her. She needed someone to comfort her and take care of her. She couldn't do what she was doing alone. Not for very much longer. But he looked down at Mercedes, who was biting her lip and fidgeting. Tonight, he was her date. And she deserved someone who was going to stick by her side instead of chasing after Quinn Fabray for once. So tonight, that someone he could tell Quinn needed so desperately was not going to be him.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

**Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed the first chapter. I know it's a little slow moving right now, but we've gotta set things up! Hopefully it'll start getting more reviews once it gets going.**

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Sam was wading his way through the sea of bodies swarming in the hallway, trying to make his way to fifth period English class, when he felt a tugging at his elbow. At first, he ignored it. Unlike the small boys' school he had attended in Tennessee, this school was so big and crowded that it was impossible to switch classes without feeling assaulted on some level. But the nagging was persistent, like a small dog nipping at his ankles. He stopped and turned around, discovering that his feeling of being trailed by a yapping dog wasn't far from the truth.

He looked down into the smiling face of Rachel Berry. Despite the smile spread too tightly over her face, Sam could tell something was wrong. Her eyes were wide, and she looked nervous as she tugged at the hem of her skirt. Sam backed out of the steadily flowing stream of students and leaned back against a row of lockers, reaching out to take Rachel by the arm and pulling her along with him.

"What's up Rachel?" he asked, wondering what could possibly be on her mind that she was coming to him. Although they were starting to build a more comfortable relationship with each other, he remained cautious around her.

He wasn't usually Rachel's first choice of people to bear her soul to. In fact, up until a few weeks ago, she didn't really seem to like him much at all. After his newness to the club wore off, and after she was fairly certain that he wasn't going to bail on them and leave them without enough members to compete, she treated him like any other of her potential competitors. Just another male vocalist who was a threat to cut in on her rule with Finn. Rachel rarely spoke to him or about him, and when she did, it was to complain about him getting a solo in a competition song, to try to bribe him to go to prom with her, or to accuse him of cheating. And some pretty impressive sexual deviance, too, since she accused him of cheating with both Quinn and Kurt at the same time.

Once she had found out the truth about his family situation, though, Rachel had been genuinely apologetic. She had been very sweet in helping Finn and the rest of the glee club buy back his guitar, and if it weren't for her and Mercedes, he would have been in the embarrassing position of delivering pizzas to all of his drunken friends at their post-prom parties. As nice as Rachel had been to him in the last few weeks, though, she and Sam still regarded each other with caution, as if they were from two different planets. To Rachel, Sam was the cute, homeless boy with a bright smile and sad eyes who she had to walk on eggshells around, never sure if she would say something unintentionally offensive. To Sam, Rachel was the most talented person he had ever met, but so talented that he often wondered if she knew that other people existed. Or maybe they all really were minor players in Rachel Berry's universe.

"I'm really worried about Quinn," she blurted out suddenly. She looked away suddenly, fiddling with the buttons on her cardigan.

"Ok?" Sam waited for the explanation. When Rachel didn't provide once, he gave in and asked, "What's got you bothered about Quinn? She slapped you at prom didn't she?"

"Oh, well yeah," Rachel started, trying to look casual, as if getting slapped was the most natural thing in the world. "That wasn't a big deal. I just, I feel so bad for her. She's so smart but she thinks being pretty is all she's got going for her."

Rachel was starting to get worked up, and she began waving her hands emphatically.

"She's got perfect grades, and you should see her SAT scores. They're like almost perfect! But she thinks all she's got going for her is that she's so pretty. She thinks she's going to stay in this town forever, being a wife and a mom and maybe a real estate agent, and the best moment of her life, the one thing she's going to look back on forever, is going to be winning prom queen."

Sam paused for a moment, thinking. "Yeah, that sucks, I guess."

Rachel looked up at him, waiting. When he didn't say anything more, she raised her hands, her expression contorting into a mixture of shock and annoyance. "That's it?"

Sam slipped out from between Rachel and the lockers he was backed up against and started walking towards his next class, the hallway flow a bit lighter now. Rachel obediently fell in stride behind him, hurrying to match his pace with her much shorter legs.

"I don't know what you want me to say, Rachel," Sam started, looking straight ahead, the life drained from his voice. "I mean, yeah, I care about Quinn, and I want her to do good things with her life. But I'm not her boyfriend anymore. It's not my place to step in and save her from whatever it is you think she needs saving from. Shouldn't you be talking to Finn about this, since he's her real boyfriend?"

Even though Rachel was behind him, out of his line of vision, Sam could tell she had stopped moving. Damn, he thought, damn I didn't mean to hurt her like that. He stopped, drew in a deep breath, and turned. He found her exactly as he expected—shoulders tense, breath halted, eyes wounded. He exhaled, his shoulder deflating.

"I'm sorry, Rachel, I didn't mean to—"

"It's ok, Sam, I just . . . Finn is just . . . He doesn't . . ." she stopped, trying to order her thoughts. Sam watched as she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and tried again. "Quinn has been really good to you, Sam. I mean, not with the whole cheating thing, but with your family. She wasn't your girlfriend, but she still cared about you enough as a friend to help you with the kids and keep your secret from all of us for months. Look, I'm not saying you need to like, try to win her back from Finn or anything, just talk to her or something. She lets you closer than anyone else."

Sam sighed. Majorly guilt tripped. And the worst part was that she was completely right. Quinn _had_ been good to him. He _did_ still care about her. And he needed to learn how to be a good friend to her regardless of the fact that she had chosen someone else to be her boyfriend. It would probably hurt. It would hurt a lot, if he was being honest, but he needed to try for her.

"You're right, Rachel," he conceded, pushing a strand of her hair back over her shoulder affectionately, "I'll talk to her. Of course, since your little stakeout with Finn, he'll probably think I'm cheating and try to kick my ass."

Rachel smiled, her battle won. "Nah, Finn's a big softie. If you can take a shot in the face from Karofsky, you can handle Finn." The expression on her face made it clear that she was still hurting. He figured it would never stop hurting. Or at least not for a long time.

Sam turned to enter his English class before that tiny presence on the back of his elbow stopped him again. She was nothing if not relentless. He turned back to her, anxious as the bell rang, signaling the start of fifth period. A slight smile curved across Rachel's face.

"I had a really nice time at the prom, Sam. Any girl would be lucky to have you."

Sam smiled back at her, thanking her before she hurried off to her own class. Mercedes had seemed genuinely happy with him as a date, and he was glad that Rachel wasn't angry with him for leaving her to her devices with Jesse for most of the night. He hustled into class and collapsed into his seat. In the back of his mind, he wondered if Rachel wasn't just working him up to try to get between Finn and Quinn so that she wouldn't be accused of doing it herself. If he was responsible for breaking them up, that would leave Finn free to come back to the mothership, after all.

But he forced those thoughts away. He needed to stop assuming that girls were manipulative, that there was a motive behind every word they said. Before he got to this school—well, before Quinn, really—he had been the most trusting person in the world. Naïve, maybe, but he didn't think so, because it was a conscious choice he made to trust in people, not an inability to see what was happening right in front of him. He didn't want to lose that aspect of himself over a girl. So, until proven otherwise, he would believe that Rachel Berry was genuinely concerned about Quinn and needed him to help.

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The next morning, Sam sat in the front row of the funeral home, watching with wide eyes as Coach Sylvester's face crumpled. Her eyes squeezed shut and her nose wrinkled up as she choked out the words "I miss my sister." Her eyes were closed too tightly to form proper tears, but her cheeks were wet, the water pooling in the fine lines around her eyes and mouth. Her hands shook at the podium, and a mournful cry was forming at the back of her throat.

Sam had never realized that this other side to her existed. He had always seen her as some kind of a cartoon, a caricature. She was mean always, at times ruthless. She had stolen presents they collected to give to children at a homeless shelter and destroyed a Christmas tree. She had pitted all the Cheerios against the rest of the club and tried to shoot Brittany out of a cannon. Sam wasn't her primary target, but still, she had accused him of cheating on Quinn with his football coach and had called him a hobo on multiple occasions. He didn't know her very well, and he just assumed she was always like this. He didn't know she had a sister, a sister with Down's Syndrome who she loved and cared for deeply, until the poor woman was already dead.

Sam had lost a lot this year—his friends and his life back in Tennessee, a girlfriend he thought he loved in Quinn, a friend he thought he made in Finn, his home, his stability, his childhood. But he had never lost something like this, never lost someone he loved. Not even a grandparent. His dad's mother was gone before Stevie and Stacy were even born, and his dad didn't talk to his father very often. His mother's parents were happily stowed away in a senior community in Tennessee, where they went on morning walks, watched movies, and played heated games of shuffleboard.

Sam closed his eyes and tried to think of what it would feel like to lose his mother. He visualized what life would be like without her. Mornings at the breakfast table where he would bicker with the kids, trying to get them to eat their cereal before he rushed them off to the bus stop. Saying grace before dinner without his left hand covering hers. Coming home from a bad day at school without her fingers running gently through his hair to soothe him. The sorrow washing over him crept down from his constricting heart and hit him deep in his stomach. He felt like he had been punched. When he opened his eyes, Sam had to fight back tears that he refused to allow to fall. Even trying to explore Coach Sylvester's agony was too much for him; he couldn't imagine what it actually felt like for her.

When he had safely suppressed the feelings of impending heartbreak and forced his knees to steady, Sam turned to glance at the girl beside him. Stoic. That was the only word Sam could think of to describe to look on Quinn's face. Her lips were sealed lightly, her face smooth, her eyes unblinking. Not an ounce of tension distorted her perfect features. He peeked over his shoulders at the others. Kurt was discreetly brushing away tears, Mercedes and Tina were leaning on each other for support, crying openly, and even Puck and Finn looked glum and moved. But Quinn was the face of perfect serenity, as always. She was paying attention, sure, but not even a trace of emotion stirred her—not a frown, not a word, not a tear.

That's what scared Sam the most. If her coping mechanism was to block it all out by not paying attention, sure, he could understand why she wouldn't be feeling much. But she was listening intently to Mr. Schue as he read Coach Sylvester's speech, taking in every word. That could only mean that her defenses were buried more deeply than anyone had even suspected. Sam had to fight the urge to reach his hand over to her arm and pinch her immediately, intentionally trying to inflict pain and see if she responded to it at all. She couldn't like, actually be a robot sent from another planet to spy on them, could she? No, no, Sam pushed the thought from his mind and scolded himself for even allowing it to enter his consciousness at a time like this. But maybe . . . no. He would just have to talk to Quinn, see what was going on with her, just like Rachel begged him to do a day earlier.

But by the end of the service, Quinn was slipping out with Finn's arm wrapped around her shoulders, comforting her from a pain she apparently never felt. Sam hung back with Mercedes and Tina, stepping in to help where he could by offering each of them an arm to curl under and a shoulder to cry on. Eventually, Mike came for Tina and Mercedes' tears dried up. She looked up at him with glistening eyes, and offered a small, wavering smile that fell away almost immediately.

"It's all just so sad, ya know?" she whispered.

Her arms crept around his waist and she leaned her face into his chest, much as she had done at the dance. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and gave her a gentle squeeze, leaning down to kiss the top of her head. Stacy loved when he did that. He wasn't really sure what to say, not sure what he _could _say to make the sadness and the hurt go away. He remembered his experiment with imagining a loss similar to Coach Sylvester's and wondered if Mercedes was doing the same thing. Or maybe she really had experienced a loss like that. He squeezed her tighter before stepping back, examining her at arm's length.

"Thanks Sam," she said, giving him that same, unsteady smile. "I'll be ok now."

After making sure that she was actually ok and seeing her off with Kurt, Sam stepped out of the funeral home, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the bright morning sunlight. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the cool, sweet air of early May. It was a welcome change from the stuffiness and suffocating stench of flowers inside. He had planned on trying to talk to Quinn after the service, but she was already seated in Finn's truck; he could see them talking from across the lot. Sam kicked his feet around a bit, wandering here and there and looking for Puck to see if he could catch a ride with him back to the motel.

Just as he spotted Puck and was about to head over, a slamming car door stole his attention and he turned just in time to see Quinn sprinting across the lot in the direction of the funeral home's small garden. He watched her run until she disappeared inside the hedges, then turned back to see Finn starting the truck's engine and backing out of the lot. Sam sighed, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he began to walk in the direction he saw Quinn running.

When he ducked between the hedges, he found her sitting in the grass just in front of a small wishing pond, plucking dandelions from the ground and setting them adrift on the rippling water. She stared in, mesmerized, as the sunny blooms turned her reflection in the water a pale gold. Sam eased up behind her quietly, not wanting to disturb her in her moment of solitude. She must have felt his presence, because she began to speak without looking away from the pile of dandelions she was beginning to weave into a garland.

"If you're here to say you're sorry, it's gonna take a little more than that this time," she said, voice low but clear. Somewhere between sullen and menacing, Sam thought.

Sam shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, picking at the lint. This was a really bad idea. Following her, that is. It was none of his business. She probably wanted to be alone, and he should have left her.

"Quinn, it's um, it's me, Sam," he stated awkwardly.

Quinn's fingers stilled over the dandelion stalks and she turned her head over her shoulder, not far enough to really look at him, but just far enough for him to see that her eyes were red rimmed. She must've been crying, Sam thought. And not those few crocodile tears she had forced out at the funeral. Actually crying. She turned back to her pile, piercing a bleeding stalk with her nail and sliding another through the opening.

"Oh."

Sam shuffled closer to the pond, leaving a good three feet of space between himself and Quinn. In case she bit, or something like that. Sam wasn't exactly an expert with pissed off or heartbroken girls.

"Mind if I sit here?" he asked, hovering over a spot of grass near the edge of the water. She shrugged without looking at him, and figuring that was the best he was going to get from her, Sam lowered himself to the warm, mossy earth. He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, staring up into the bright sky. Minutes passed, and as they sat in silence, Sam realized that between the warmth of the sun, the stillness of the air, and the presence of someone he considered a friend, he was the most relaxed he'd been in a long time. By the time Quinn opened her mouth to speak, Sam wasn't nervous anymore.

"What are you doing here? Why did you follow me?" she asked.

"I don't know," Sam replied truthfully. "You just looked like you needed a friend."

Quinn paused for a moment to consider that. Her words were calm. "Just because Finn and I broke up doesn't mean I want you to swoop in and try to get with me. That's not what I need right now."

"I don't wanna get with you."

"What?" Quinn was clearly thrown by his response.

"I told you I cared about you, Quinn, and I still do. I think you need some time to take care of whatever's going on with you. I'm just trying to help you because you're my friend. You've been a pretty good friend to me lately, I figured I could try to return the favor."

Quinn raised her eyes from the strand of dandelions she had finally linked into a crown and looked at him uneasily. The sun was glittering in her golden hair and bringing her hazel eyes to life. Sam had to stop himself from pushing a strand of hair out of her eyes and behind her ear. He shouldn't touch her. He wasn't great at recognizing his mistakes before he made them, but this was one he saw coming clear as day. He really shouldn't touch her right now.

"You can't do this alone forever, Quinn," he stated.

"Do what?" she asked flatly, the question gone from her tone.

"I don't know, what _are_ you doing?"

Her eyes flitted down to the yellow flowers in her lap. Weeds, really. Five more minutes passed as Sam watched her fiddle in silence.

"They keep trying to beat me down, Sam," Quinn whispered, her eyes never leaving her hands in her lap.

"Who does?" he asked, confused.

"Everyone," she answered, her eyes seeking out his for the first time since they began talking. For the first time in a long time, really. A very long time. "Everyone can't wait for me to slip up so they can jump all over it. So they can rub it in my face how _not_ perfect I am. When I got pregnant they were like vultures. Now I have to be even _more_ perfect just to keep afloat. And there's so much pressure. They want me to get fat, or get a bad test grade, or lose prom queen to a gay boy," she scoffed, looking away. "Guess they got what they wanted."

Sam sat silently, chewing at the corner of his lip. He understood. At times, he had felt the same way himself. He hadn't even wanted to join the glee club at first even though he loved music because he was afraid of what everyone else would think of him. But for him, his inner nerd always won out. He always gave in and ended up being himself, as much as he often desperately wanted to be someone else. Quinn, in a way, was stronger than him. She never let the inner nerd, or the inner glee clubber, or the inner scared little girl win. Perfect, ice princess Quinn won almost 100% of the time.

As usual, Sam wasn't really sure what to say to make it better. Words weren't really his thing. Reaching out slowly so that she could tell him to stop if she wanted him to, Sam removed the dandelion garland from Quinn's lap, holding it gingerly so as not to break its delicate chain.

"You never did get your crown, did you," he said, placing the blooms on her head with a smile. He dropped his hands away and sat back to examine her. "Wow, Quinn, you must _really_ love butter, you're completely glowing!"

The color rose in Quinn's cheeks, and her lips curved into a smile. No teeth in this one, but Sam could tell by the sparkle in her eyes that it was the first genuine smile she'd had in a while.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Hey guys, thanks to those of you who took the time to read and review. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit disappointed that this story is generating so little interest, especially since I can see that the two previous chapters have been read 115 times. I'm not that person who's going to say "I won't post another chapter until I get 15 reviews" because I'm not going to force anyone to do something they don't want to, but I can honestly say that the reviews help me stay motivated and excited about the story. When I know people are invested in it, I do my best to come up with a great storyline and elements. This story is going somewhere good. When it gets to the Skank Quinn and Stripper Sam part, I think it'll be really exciting for all of you. But one of the things I don't like about the actual show is how abruptly these things happen, so I want to take the time in my own writing to explore how everything gets to the way it is. I would love to get there, but if this story continues to generate such low interest, I'm going to drop it in favor of my own fiction. Constructive criticism is always welcome.**

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Sam pressed his nose to the window, flattening it and creating a little smudge along with fog marks where his shaky breaths were steaming the glass. Very slowly, he lowered his eyes, peaking down over his smushed nose, down 30,000 feet to the geometric landscape of the Midwest. Once they had left New York and passed over eastern Pennsylvania, the entire country started to become startlingly square. Sam tried to estimate the scale. How big was each of those blocks? A mile maybe? So he could probably run about eight of those little blocks, tops. From up that high, eight blocks were about the size of his thumb, and they passed by entire handfuls of them at a time.

He allowed his eyes to slip that fraction of an inch further closed until the blond lashes were fanned over his cheeks. He squeezed them tightly. For some reason, his fingers and toes felt tingly. The trip out to New York had been his first time on a plane, but at that point, everyone had been so caught up in the excitement of it all—the trip, the big city, writing songs, the competition—that the constant chattering was keeping him distracted. On the trip home, on the other hand, everyone was dead silent. No one spoke. People barely looked at each other. Mr. Schue had tried to pep things up a bit by asking about everyone's summer plans, but even he gave up after a few minutes. And without that distraction, Sam was having a hard time keeping his stomach from plummeting out of his body, out of the plane, to the square earth below.

Sam wasn't really sure why everyone was hating on Rachel. Well, except for the fact that everyone always hated Rachel. The way he saw it, she hadn't really done anything. She had been clear that being in New York and singing on that stage was her dream, not being quarterback Finn's girlfriend. She had insisted that he not distract her while she tried to accomplish what she had set out to do on this trip. She had refused to kiss him. She had written them a killer song and performed her heart out. Then Finn kissed her. Then they lost. Sam wasn't sure that those two things were related, but even if they were, he didn't see how any of it was Rachel's fault.

But still, he had to clutch Santana—who was much stronger than she looked—around the waist, at times even pulling at her ponytail, to keep her from tearing out Rachel's jugular with her teeth. And no one wanted to sit next to her on the plane ride home. On the way there, they had all received seat assignments from Mr. Schue, supposedly to keep them focused and to spark their creativity. Basically, what he had done was separate anyone who he thought would distract each other. Rachel and Finn were aisles apart. So were Brittany and Santana and Puck and Zizes. Apparently Mike and Tina weren't a problem.

Rachel's assigned seat partner had been Mercedes. But even sweet, good-natured Mercedes was so annoyed by Rachel's self-centeredness (but probably more by the fact that Rachel hogged her spotlight and then blew it on the biggest stage) that she refused to sit by her. Mr. Schue resisted but eventually gave up on the seat assignments, and everyone shuffled around until they were happy with their row partners. The only one who would sit next to Rachel was Finn.

Sam especially couldn't understand why everyone was hating on Rachel when no one seemed to be all that upset with Finn. From where Sam was sitting, Finn was the only douche bag in this whole scenario. Not only had he gone against Rachel's wishes when she had been clear that she didn't want to start anything with him, but he had also morbidly embarrassed Quinn. No one seemed to notice that part.

On stage, after Rachel and Finn were out there alone singing the first number of their set, the rest of the group had filed on, facing away from the audience. They were supposed to stay that way until the music cut in for their second number, at which point they would spin around, step out of the shadows, and join into the song. But when the entire audience had gone inexplicably silent for an entire minute, almost everyone had snuck a peek.

When Sam saw the cause of the awkward silence for himself, his eyes immediately shot to Quinn. Her cheeks were burning and her fingers were curling and uncurling into tight fists. In the dim light, Sam could see the tears welling in her eyes, and she stared up under her long lashes in an attempt to keep them from falling. Her jaw clenched, and there was a slight trembling in her shoulders. Sam sighed. By the time the audience starting politely clapping and the music started up, Quinn was spinning around, perfectly composed, with a giant, dazzling smile on her face.

Sam snuck a glance over the shoulder of the pretty blonde girl sitting next to him on the plane. Quinn had been staring at the same page in her Cosmo magazine for over thirty minutes. It was an ad for sunglasses. Cool sunglasses, sure, and Quinn would probably look great in them, but unless there was something fundamental he didn't understand about girls, or sunglasses, he wasn't sure why it would take almost forty minutes for her to decide if she liked them or not.

Sensing the presence of his eyes on her, Quinn closed the magazine with a sigh and slipped it into the seatback pocket.

"I can't focus," she muttered, her head slipping down to rest on Sam's shoulder.

Sam was a bit surprised that she was leaning on him like this. In the last few weeks, she had been acting like everything was fine, like she didn't need anyone's help. And even beyond that, there was never anything casual about touching Quinn, or about her touching you. Even before they had started dating, she had given off this air of superiority, of high school royalty, that made her seemed like a poisoned apple. Oh so tempting, but if you dared to touch her, you would get stung. In the months that they were a couple, he still asked permission, asked if he could touch her, where he could put his hands, how far he could move them. When he leaned in to kiss her, he did it slowly, keeping his eyes open, to give her a chance to pull away, or slap him, or whatever. Once they weren't dating anymore, they had gone back to stage one, where there was a wall of electricity around Quinn, threatening to buzz the crap out of whatever unfortunate soul decided to stick his paws through her force field.

So for her to act like touching him, nuzzling her cheek against his shoulder and letting her golden waves spill down over his chest, was the most natural thing in the world was quite a departure from her normal MO. But she seemed so relaxed, so at ease against him, that he wasn't about to question her on the sudden change.

He shifted his eyes to look down at her discreetly, trying not to tip her off that he was staring. She was staring straight ahead into the back of the seat in front of her, but her lips were parted slightly, and she was exhaling evenly. A half smile pulled at the corner of Sam's mouth. He knew she was depressed—or disappointed, or humiliated, or enraged—but he was happy to see her relaxing for once, letting her shoulders slump, letting her smile fall. He took a chance and reached his hand up to run over her hair. She was warm to the touch. Quinn's eyes slid shut, and her breath came out in a long, even sigh.

"Why don't you sleep for a bit?" Sam asked, running his hand over her hair a few more times.

Quinn nodded sleepily without opening her eyes and settled into him. Sam leaned his cheek against the top of her head briefly, offering her comfort in the best way he knew how. He was never particularly good with words, but he had a way of expressing himself physically that seemed to speak volumes. His hugs could cure cancer, or so he was told. Straightening up slowly so as not to disturb the sleeping beauty on his shoulder, Sam let his hand fall to his lap and looked out the window. The clouds were so thick that the plane appeared to be floating among them.

"Sam?" Quinn's voice was soft and thick with fatigue, her eyes still closed.

"Mhm?" he answered, looking down at her again.

"Keep doing that please."

Sam obediently raised his hand and rested it against the soft masses of Quinn's hair, running it in smooth strokes until her breathing was perfectly even again.

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At the airport, while waiting for everyone's bags at the baggage carousel, Quinn stood on the opposite side of the room as Sam. She had awoken with a start when the plane landed and shot straight up in her seat. Sam had just looked at her with amusement, but Quinn was blushing deep with embarrassment. Whether it was because she had let down her guard enough to fall asleep on another human being, especially one who wasn't her boyfriend, or because she left a small drool mark on his t-shirt was undetermined. He figured it must have been the falling asleep thing because if it was drool, she was making an awfully big deal out of it.

She had exited the plane without a word, spent twenty minutes smoothing her hair and touching up her makeup, then lined up along the luggage belt, away from all the others. Sam didn't have a bag to pick up since he had packed only a backpack, and thought of walking over beside her, but then thought better of it. She had on her best I'm-Quinn-Fabray-I-own-this-place-you-all-bore-me look of disdain. By now, Sam knew that it was all an act. It was how she protected herself from the world. If the world saw her vulnerabilities, if it found the places she was weak, Quinn believed it would use them to bring her down.

Sam dug into his back pocket for his wallet, pulling it out. He began the process of scavenging. He found three crumpled ones, and if he dug together all of his change, he had another two dollars. So five. He was always short on cash. For all the hours he worked at the pizza place, he felt like he never had anything to show for it. Well, that wasn't really true. He had a place to sleep to show for it. He could usually pull in $200 bucks a week, and by the time he paid for the motel room and food, he was lucky if there was ten bucks left over. And that was only if Stevie and Stacy didn't need anything. Nationals had really hit him hard, but thank God they were only a few days away from summer vacation. Then he would be able to work forty hours a week, and he'd make plenty to sustain his family's current lifestyle, at least for a while. He'd be a full time pizza service professional.

Sam stuffed the money, change and all, into his pocket. Five dollars would buy two coffees right? Or maybe one coffee and he would drink water. The kind from the faucet in those waxy little cups. He started after Quinn, who was just about at the door. Her mom would probably be there any minute to pick her up. He tried to look casual, but he was definitely hustling. When he reached her, he touched his hand to the back of her elbow. She spun around fast as lightning, looking for all the world like she was planning to slap him stupid. Sam's eyes widened at her sudden movement and he instinctively jumped back a step. Quinn had never hit him before, but she just had that way about her. Like when she almost ripped Santana's ponytail out. She was a don't mess kinda girl.

"I, um, sorry, I just . . ." Sam took a second to compose himself, then tried again. "I was kinda hoping I could buy you a coffee."

"My mom's going to be here in a minute."

"I know, I just thought . . ."

"Why?"

Sam scratched the back of his head, looking down at his well-worn sneakers. She was definitely something else. "I don't know, I just thought it would be nice, I guess. We didn't really get to talk a whole lot at Nationals."

Quinn looked down at the floor, at the door, at her phone, at the chipping polish on her nails, at what seemed like just about anything she could look at to avoid looking at him.

"Ok."

Just like that, really? After you just looked like you wanted to eat my eyes for lunch? Sam thought.

"Ok?"

"Yes, we can go. I'll tell my mom that I'll meet her back at home. Is your dad coming to pick you up?"

"Yep, he should be here soon. I called him from the pay phone right when we landed so . . ."

"Is he bringing the kids?"

Quinn was trying to play it cool, her voice steady and unaffected, but Sam could see the glimmer of excitement playing in her eyes. Sam knew that Stevie and Stacy were way bigger selling points than he was. Other guys had to walk around with stupid little yapping dogs. He could just walk around with his two gorgeous blonde babies and he'd have girls falling all over him. He hadn't quite pimped them out on purpose before, but Quinn was definitely in love with them, so maybe . . .

"Yeah, they should be with him. They miss me," Sam said, faking bravado.

"You mean you miss them," she corrected, her eyes now animated.

Sam just nodded with a smile, conceding defeat. Quinn poked her pointer finger into Sam's chest, her eyes mischievous.

"We all know who got the looks in your family, Sam Evans."

Sam got brief chuckle out of the fact that they were passing up Mrs. Fabray's black Mercedes Benz for his dad's old, rusted out pickup, but when his dad pulled up and the kids piled out—at first yelling "Sammy! Sammy!" but almost immediately switching to "Quinnie!"—he felt like he understood why the material things mattered so little.

There wasn't enough room in the pickup for all of them—Sam's dad hadn't been expecting company—but Quinn quickly pulled a giggling Stacy onto her lap and buckled the seatbelt around both of them. Sam did the same with Stevie, who was decidedly less giggly and more grumbly, deeming himself too old at the age of ten to be cuddled in his big brother's lap, in the middle of the truck, squeezed between his dad and Quinn. Anyone else would have said the ride was uncomfortable, but Sam had gotten so used to being close to his family in the last few months that it didn't bother him at all. A quick glance at Quinn revealed that it didn't bother her either.

When they reached the Lima Bean, Sam and Quinn tumbled the kids back into the truck. They were a tangle of skinny, reaching arms and legs, begging their two favorite people in the world, at least for right now, to come back with them, or take them along. Quinn laughed, making sure everyone's limbs were back in the truck before shutting the door. There was nothing like two little balls of blonde energy to loosen Quinn up, and Sam knew and took great advantage of this.

"I wish I had a little sister," she said wistfully as the two joined the line for the Lima Bean counter.

"Oh yeah? Why's that?" Sam asked.

"I don't know, being the youngest meant I always got everything I wanted, and that was great, I guess. But I was always the one being babied. I looked up to Frannie like she was a goddess, but no one ever looked up to me like that. No one looked to me for advice or to set a good example. I don't know, Sam, the way those two kids look up to you, like you're the greatest thing on earth . . . It's something I want for me, too."

Sam smiled, daring to run his hand along the back of her arm for a moment.

"Well, you can keep Stacy."

"Oh really? Is that so?" Quinn asked, knowing how much Sam worshipped that little girl. He thought again.

"Well, maybe then you can just borrow her. As long as you promise to bring her back."

Quinn smiled brightly.

After they ordered and received their coffee—well, Quinn ordered coffee, Sam had enough change left over for orange juice—they sat down at a booth in the back. Quinn sipped at her coffee for a few moments, still glowing warmly from their interaction with the children. Sam figured that if he was going to get anything out of her, he had better do it soon, before the anesthetic his little brother and sister had unwittingly provided him wore off. Sam twisted the cap of the orange juice bottle on and off, on and off.

"So, what did you think about Nationals?" he asked, figuring that question was an innocent enough place to start.

Quinn sighed, looking down into her coffee cup, warming her hands on its sides. "We did fine, I guess."

Sam nodded slowly, twisting the cap. He let that comment sit for a few minutes, knowing, or hoping really, that she would come out with it eventually. She wouldn't be able to leave it at just that. Eventually, she did.

"Is she prettier than me, Sam?"

"Not really," he answered, knowing exactly who Quinn was referring to.

"Is she smarter than me? Is she a better person than me?"

Sam considered it. Quinn was a difficult girl. But Rachel Berry was no picnic. It was probably a wash.

"Not really."

"Then why did he choose her?" she asked, a hint of desperation in her voice.

Sam knew what she wanted to hear. She wanted to hear the she was the prettiest, smartest, nicest, most wonderful girl in the entire world and that Rachel was a nasty, lumpy toad compared to her. She wanted to hear that Finn was a total idiot for choosing Rachel, and that no other rational boy would make the same choice. Sam knew what she wanted to hear, but he knew that what she wanted wasn't what would help her, and he was her friend, not her boyfriend, so he went for it.

"You can't always choose who you love."

"You think he loves her?"

"Yeah, I do."

"But why?"

Sam paused, thinking. Her questions didn't annoy him. Patience was definitely one of his greatest virtues.

"Sometimes it's not about how hot a girl is, or how nice she is. Sometimes it's just about how you feel when you're together. Clearly it's something about the way Rachel makes him feel that makes Finn love her. And it's not something you can learn or change about yourself. You're a beautiful girl, Quinn, but you're not going to be everyone's soul mate."

Quinn was focused on the table. She had created a small pile of sugar on a napkin and was wetting her finger with her tongue, dipping it into the pile, and bringing the finely coated finger back to her lips. She did this over and over. For a moment, Sam began to wonder if she had been listening at all.

"He walked all over me."

"Yeah, I know he did."

"We were dating for months, we were about to be prom king and queen. We were the perfect couple. And then all in one fell swoop, he dumped me at a funeral and declared his love to Bilbo Baggins by making out with her on a stage for the whole world to see. How is that supposed to make me look?"

"How does it make you feel?"

Lick, dip, lick. Lick, dip, lick. Lick, dip, lick. It was becoming a bit compulsive.

"Really stupid. And embarrassed."

Sam bit the inside of his cheek in thought.

"Not heartbroken?"

Now it was Quinn's turn to think. She hadn't looked at him even once in this entire conversation. Or once the conversation got serious, anyway.

"No, I don't think so. Not heartbroken. Just really, really mortified."

"Because he chose her and not you."

"I guess so."

"Quinn," Sam started, taking her hand in his and pulling it away from the rapidly depleting pile of sugar. "There are gonna be so many guys who choose you first. Probably more than you'll even realize. But it has to come from both of you. You have to be the only one he thinks about when goes to sleep at night. And he has to be the only one for you. You can't make it work if you don't feel the same way."

Quinn waited, letting his words sink in. "You're smarter than you let on, Sam," she smiled.

"Why, do I come across as super dumb?" A goofy smile was spreading across his face.

"Yeah, most of the time."

Sam couldn't contain his smile anymore and burst out laughing. Quinn laughed too, and he was happy to see her happy. After a minute, though, her smile slowly started to sink and fade, then disappeared entirely. She was silent, lost in thought.

"Did you choose me first?"

Sam felt a pang in his heart. He had been completely dedicated to helping Quinn as a friend, the way she had helped him, and he was actively trying not to recall their time as a couple. How she had hurt him.

"Yes."

Quinn nodded slowly, looking back down at her hands surrounding the coffee mug. It must be cold by now.

"I'm sorry," she stated, glancing up at him sheepishly before her eyes flitted back down to her hands. "For what I did to you. I was confused about how I felt about both of you. It was cruel. You must have been just as embarrassed then as I am now."

"Not embarrassed," Sam said, now looking down at his own hands. "Heartbroken."

Another long pause.

"I think I could have loved you, Sam, if everything hadn't happened the way it did," Quinn offered, barely above a whisper.

Sam looked up at her, not trying anymore to mask the pain that was clouding his bright green eyes. He had been devastated at first. Sad and miserable. Then angry. His fling with Santana hadn't done much to alleviate the pain of losing Quinn, but at least it had fizzled out the immediate hurt and anger. He didn't really like her, she didn't like him. But eventually he had gotten to the point where he was ok with it all. He had started moving on. Slower than she had, sure, but probably in a way that was healthier.

He was about to tell her that saying something like that wasn't necessary. He didn't need her to feel bad for the stupid little boy who had loved her far more than she had ever loved him and had gotten his heart smashed by reality. It was ok now. He would be ok, and he didn't need her pity. He opened his mouth, waiting for all of this to fall out, hopefully in a coherent stream, but she cut him off.

"Maybe I still can."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**Hey guys, thanks so much for the reviews on last chapter. They really made me feel a lot better about this story. This chapter sets in motion the first of three phases in this story, so I hope you like where it's headed. Please read and review, and as always, enjoy!**

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Sam was positive that his teenaged boy brain was not designed to compute this many emotions at once. Complicated feelings were a girl's line of business, and one that he chose to stay out of if it was at all possible. He liked things simple. He liked the anxiety that plagued him when the humans initiated war against the Na'vi for Pandora, the pang of despair when Grace died. He liked the way his fingers plucking at the strings of his guitar could melt away any tension that had built over the day. The way his heart swelled with love when his little sister curled up next to him and asked him to read to her at night after her bath. The frustration he felt when he messed up one of the words. The excitement when he caught a pretty girl checking him out and she blushed and looked away. The heartache he felt for his parents when his dad lost his job and they eventually lost their home. The simple happiness of performing at Nationals, then the disappointment of losing. All of these things Sam could cope with because they came up one at a time and his brain could process.

But Quinn telling him maybe she could still love him? That produced way too many conflicting emotions.

Issue number one: Quinn might freakin' love him! No freakin' way! He wanted to jump and glide and fly around the room. He wanted to knock over his chair, run to the nearest barista and tell him that Lucy Quinn Fabray, that girl sitting in the booth back there, the most perfect girl in the world, has deemed it possible that she could love him, Sam Evans, full of imperfections and insecurities. It was impossible, really. He had chased her for so long. Even while they were dating, he still felt like he was chasing her hopelessly. He did everything he could think of to try to get her to like him. He opened doors for her, he held her hand when they walked down the halls, he even got her that stupid ring and promised that he would never pressure her. All so that maybe someday she would give in and love him as much as he loved her.

But issue number two: She broke his heart. He had wormed his way into her heart, maybe by force with his blond hair and abs and big smile or with his shameless Justin Bieber songs. But still, he had managed to get there. Managed to get to a point that he was confident she was at least into him. And then as soon as Finn won that championship game—which Sam quarterbacked half of while Finn was off searching for cheerleaders, despite the fact Finn took all the credit for it, Sam felt like adding—Quinn was secretly fawning over him. Or not so secretly, since Santana and eventually the rest of the glee club seemed to find out. He meant nothing to her. Absolutely nothing. She made that clear by making out with Finn the second Finn was more popular than him. And it killed him because he had let himself fall so hard for her. Was it only a matter of time before she did something like that? Maybe.

But issue number three: Holy hell that girl was hot. Like, hot hot. Santana and Brittany had cut her hair short while they were in New York and it was choppy and uneven at places, but it only served to highlight the natural beauty of her face. Sam knew she wore makeup because she was always examining it in a compact mirror, smudging at it with her finger, but he wasn't exactly sure where. Everything about her looked so natural, like she was Sleeping Beauty waking up from a deep rest and looking that perfect without even trying. And she had that way of looking at you. Sam had witnessed that teasing grin and spark in her eyes many times before. She knew how to make guys want her, desperately. She knew how to turn up the heat and desire in him, even when he knew it would all be for nothing. She did it all the time when he was on his back on her bed, biting his lips and squeezing his eyes and flapping his feet, trying to get the image of her burning bedroom eyes out of his brain. It was the look she was giving him right now, and he wanted nothing more than to pull her into his lap, legs open, and make out with her tonsils.

But, of course, issue number four: She wasn't ready to be saying something like this. As much as it killed him, he knew somewhere in that fevered brain of his that Quinn was grasping. She was hurt about Finn. Hurt that he had chosen another girl over her and hurt that he had embarrassed her in front of all her friends. Not so much her friends, even, as the people she wanted to worship her. And now that quarterback, lead singer Finn was off the table, Sam figured he was a nice set of abs for her to fall back on. A nice face to be seen around school with. If she was seen hand in hand with him, it would show everyone at that stupid school that Quinn could care less about Finn, that she was perfect and popular and happy. That she was their queen and nothing could set her back.

Sam hated having all these conflicting feelings running through his mind, it was too much. Way too much for him to deal with all at once. It was like they were playing ping pong inside his skull, fighting for control.

"Sam?" Quinn asked. Apparently he had been sitting there silently for a while, staring intently into the dredges of his orange juice.

"Don't say things like that, Quinn," Sam whispered suddenly, barely audible. He tried to keep the pain and confusion in his eyes from showing, but he was sure she could hear it in his voice.

Quinn's brows knitted in confusion. Sam didn't blame her. He wasn't quite sure himself why he hadn't said "awesome" and made an immediate dive for her pants. Well, skirt really, since she wasn't wearing any pants. Oh God.

"Uhhh, why?"

Sam looked up from his hands, meeting her eyes. "Remember what I said about choosing you first?"

Quinn nodded.

"Well you didn't choose me first. You chose Finn. You'd rather be with him, and you'd still be with him, not thinking about me for a second if he hadn't picked Rachel."

Sam was calm, but he could see the color rising in her cheeks, signaling the onset of Scary Quinn.

"Sam, that's not fair. I didn't _choose_ Finn. You didn't really give me a chance to choose. I was confused and trying to figure things out. I told you I wanted to be with _you_ and _you_ dumped _me_. And then you hooked up with _Santana_, what, to get back at me? And how was I supposed to _feel_ about _that_?"

Sam sighed, lowering his forehead into his right hand and tugging at the wisps of hair falling into his eyes with his fingertips. He hadn't meant to start a fight with Quinn. Especially not a fight that would drag up everything about the very messy end to their relationship three months ago. Whenever he was around girls who were upset, his immediate reaction was oh God, make it better, make it better, make it better.

"Quinn, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. I just . . . Don't settle for me just because you can't have him. You're a strong girl, Quinn. You don't need a guy or a relationship to make you happy."

He couldn't quite tell, because she was mysterious like that, but to him Quinn looked pretty annoyed by this. She didn't speak, didn't bother to answer him, and he could feel her retreating into ice princess mode after the relatively open, heartfelt conversation they'd managed to have. Though he was disappointed, he figured it had to happen eventually. She probably melted if she stayed out of her cave for too long. Silence filled the void between them, and Sam began to fidget. When she was open and vulnerable, Sam felt safe, like he had the upper hand, or was at least playing on even field. When she got silent, haughty, and bored, Sam felt like he was on dangerous ground. He was a minion that needed to watch his step before he lost his head.

"I'm taking Mercedes out," he stated quietly.

Quinn blinked. "Out to pasture?"

Now it was Sam's turn to blink at her. "That was really rude, Quinn."

She sighed, suddenly very uninterested in this conversation. "You're right, I'm sorry. You like her, then."

"I don't know yet. We had a really nice time at prom, so I asked her if she wanted to go to the movies and she said yes."

"Well good for you," Quinn said dully, inspecting her nails.

Another long, awkward silence passed between the two of them, Quinn chipping at her nail polish and Sam running his finger along the wood grain in the table.

"Let me walk you back to the motel and then I'll drive you home, ok?"

Quinn nodded silently and waited while he stepped around the table to take her hand and help her out of the booth.

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Quinn was seething. Sam had just walked her to her door, then once she was inside, retreated to that bumping, jarring, rusted hulk of a truck. She was getting pretty damn tired of boys telling her what was best for her. He hadn't said that he didn't want to be with her. He had told her that she didn't really want to be with him, that she was making it up, that she was confused, that she didn't understand her own feelings, that she didn't really know what she wanted right now. Basically, that he knew better than she did what was in her best interest. What the hell? It felt like boys were always doing this to her. Finn, Puck, now even Sam? Precious, honest, stupid, genuine Sam.

She pranced up the stairs and slammed the door to her bedroom. Her mom was in the kitchen cooking dinner, and if she noticed that something was bothering Quinn, she probably would be too intimidated to ask. Judy Fabray didn't especially like acknowledging that Quinn had feelings, because if she acknowledged that she had feelings, that meant she had to talk to her about them, and if she had to talk to her about them, that meant hours of trudging around in teenage drama that she couldn't be bothered to understand.

Quinn flopped back on her bed in a huff. She ran her hands through her now short hair viciously, rubbing it around until it was wild and knotted and stood up around her head in all directions. She sat up on her bed, looking across the room into her giant mirror. She looked like an animal. Like a wild, blonde animal, dangerous and deadly. Mesmerized by her reflection, she floated over to the mirror and gazed at herself. Her cheekbones and collarbones were flushed, her eyes dark and buzzing with electricity, and her hair spiking like she had plugged her fingers into a socket.

Operating under a spell, Quinn slid open the top drawer of her bureau and dug her fingertips through her tray of lipsticks. She pushed aside all the expensive Estee Lauder mattes and Dior glosses until her fingers hovered over a small white tube with smiling orange pumpkins all over it. Selecting the tube, she removed the cap and twisted. She ran the stick over her lips, coating them in a creamy, midnight black. She rolled her lips, smoothing them, and examined herself in the mirror. She looked . . . wicked. She looked like the kind of girl her mother would be afraid of in the park. Like the kind of girl her father would say had ineffective parents. Like the kind of girl Coach Sylvester would beat away from her Cheerios with a stick in case she gave any of them ideas of insubordination. Like the kind of girl that would drop innocent church boy Sam Evans' jaw.

Snapping out of it, Quinn looked at herself one more time and was shocked at what she saw. She didn't even recognize herself. Not the sinister smirk curling over her lips. Not the evil playing in her eyes. This wasn't her. Not the pretty, blonde, would-be prom queen. Not the head Cheerio, the glee club singer, or even Beth's mom. She plucked a Kleenex from the box and wiped the thick black lipstick from her lips, reapplying a soft pink gloss. She tossed the crumpled tissue in the trash.

She needed to talk to someone. And she needed to talk to someone who could listen, not a boy who would hear that she was upset and immediately panic and rush into fix-it mode. Her mom wasn't really equipped to handle these things. She would listen to Quinn for about ten seconds, make some ridiculous suggestion that proved she hadn't really been listening, then pour herself a glass of Chardonnay. Boys were out. Every guy she felt close enough to actually talk to, she had dated. Finn was a moron, Puck's brain lived in his pants, and Sam, the only one who could actually be useful, was kinda the problem. And about girls, well it seems like she was short on girlfriends these days. She and Rachel had a tenuous relationship, but the whole thing with Finn had cut that short. Santana was a bitch most of the time, Brittany was too dumb, and Quinn wasn't sure if she and Tina had spoken two words to each other the entire year. During her pregnancy, Mercedes had been her closest friend, but over the year they had drifted apart again, and now, Mercedes seemed to be part of the problem too.

Frannie. She could call Frannie. She would know what to do. She always did. Quinn's big sister was exactly like Quinn except actually perfect, instead of just trying to convince people she was. She was a senior at Ohio State, blonde and beautiful, president of her sorority, on a full academic scholarship, dating one of the captains of the football team, fiercely smart and witty, kind and generous beyond human capacity, and the most popular girl anyone had ever met. And she didn't become popular by trying to embody the image of what everyone else wanted to be; she was just herself, and everyone loved her for it. She always gave great advice.

Quinn punched in her big sister's number. Despite it being six in the evening, a groggy voice answered the phone.

"Frannie?"

"Hey Quinnie Bear!"

"Hey."

"What's up? I wasn't expecting to hear from you til next week."

Quinn called every Tuesday night to detail her week to her big sister. When Frannie had first started college, they had trouble managing each other's schedules. Quinn would call while Frannie was in class or out with friends, and Frannie often forgot that, unlike her, Quinn had to be at school before noon. They got frustrated with each other, but eventually, they found a steady schedule, and by Frannie's senior year, they had gotten closer than ever.

"Oh, nothing really."

"Out with it, Quinnie. More boy drama?"

Frannie was an expert. For Quinn's whole life, she couldn't remember a time when Frannie wasn't in complete control of her relationships, her friendships, and everyone around her. She had been the prom queen, dated the quarterback, and gotten a full ride to college for her perfect grades. Everyone adored her. But, unlike Quinn, she never seemed to dwell in drama. She and her high school sweetheart had a healthy relationship that they continued into college, and when they mutually decided to break things off, Frannie had recovered confidently, remained his friend, and began seeing her current boyfriend of two and a half years. Frannie never screwed things up the way Quinn did. Quinn wasn't sure why she gave such great advice, since she never did anything wrong, but the fact remained that she did, and Quinn needed her.

"Sorta."

"Already? Since the Finn stuff? All right, let's hear it."

Quinn sighed. "You remember Sam?"

"The cute blond one with the pretty lips?"

"Yeah, that's him."

"Yeah, what about him?"

"Well, he's been really sweet to me lately."

"And?"

"And I've been thinking maybe I was wrong about being with Finn, and it's been Sam this whole time I'm meant to be with."

"But?"

Quinn sighed again. Frannie connected her thoughts for her like she already knew what was coming.

"But he doesn't want to be with me. Well, it's even worse than that really. He didn't say he didn't want to be with me, he basically said that I'm not ready to be in a relationship and that the only reason I wanna be with him is because Finn dumped me. I'm so tired of people acting like they know what's best for me better than I do."

"Is he right?"

Quinn paused to think about that for a minute, examining the jagged edge of a now short strand of hair.

"Kinda, but not really. I mean, I am upset about Finn, and I don't wanna be alone. But it's not like I just randomly chose Sam out of a hat, or that I only wanna be with him because Finn's gone. I mean, I never stopped having feelings for Sam. I know I screwed up with the whole cheating on him thing, but I had feelings for both of them. Now I know it's not there with Finn, and it would be nice to see if there's still anything there with Sam."

"Did you tell him that?"

Quinn tried to recall the conversation, tried to figure out exactly when she had started steaming and stopped talking, tried to determine which words were said aloud and which had been uttered only in her head.

"I don't think so."

"Well, then."

"He thinks I'm settling for him."

"Then if you want to give it a try with him, you'll just have to make him feel like you're not settling. Like he's not second best."

"You mean like, pursue him?"

Quinn had never really done it before. She was the desirable one. Boys came after her. They always did.

"That's exactly what I mean. It's a new world, Quinnie Bear, girls can go after the boys they like, court them a little bit. You don't have to sit back and wait for what you want to materialize out of thin air anymore."

"I guess so," Quinn paused. "There's another problem, though."

"What's that?"

"He's taking Mercedes out on a date."

"Ah. Well you'll just have to sabotage them then."

"Can I do that?""

"No, Quinnie, I was just kidding."

"What do I do then?"

"Just wait a little bit. Let him go on his date with her, see how it goes. No point in starting a big battle if nothing's going to happen between the two of them anyway. And if he does start to develop feelings for her, then you have to reassess how badly you want him, and whether he's worth fighting for. Maybe yes, maybe no."

"You're good at this, Frannie."

"Of course I am. I'm your big sister."

"Well, thanks."

"Quinn?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you sure you're not just setting a challenge for yourself with this guy? You kinda do that sometimes. Go after things you don't actually want just to prove you can have them."

"I'm not sure."

"Ok, well make sure you think about that, too, before you decide to do anything. Call me if there're any new developments, and if not, call me Tuesday."

"Ok Frannie, love you."

"Love you too, Quinnie."

Quinn set the phone back on its receiver and laid down on her bed again. She tried to visualize what things would be like now if she hadn't made out with Finn, and if Sam was still her boyfriend. Would their relationship have developed any further? Would she be in love with him by now? Or would they have just broken up anyway? Every time she tried to picture it, she drew a complete blank. Sam was still hot, and she found herself deeply attracted to him as she always had been, but she had no idea what she should expect out of a more serious relationship with him. Was Frannie right? Was he just a challenge to her, to prove that she could have him if she wanted him? Sighing, she resigned herself to following Frannie's advice. There was no trying to figure this one out in advance so that she couldn't make any mistakes; she would just have to wait it out.

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"So what are you doing all summer?" Mercedes whispered harshly in the dark of the theater. She was trying to whisper so loudly that she almost sounded angry.

They sat all the way in the back row so there would be no one to shush them, but only a few others were scattered around anyway, most of them other teenagers making out or throwing popcorn. The movie was some action flick Sam might have otherwise been interested in if he wasn't on a date. They lost interest in it and began chatting about forty minutes in. As it turned out, Sam and Mercedes didn't know a whole lot about each other, other than the sound of their singing voices.

"I'm gonna try to pick up more hours at the pizza place. Try to make some more money. What about you?" Sam tried to whisper loud enough for her to hear him over the zooming motorcycles and machine gun blasts, but it was easier just to talk, so he kept his voice low.

"Oh, I'm not really doing much of anything. Hanging out a lot by the pool, workin' on ma tan," she drawled running her hand along her bare arm. The silvery glow from the screen reminded him of the moonlight that illuminated the lakes in Tennessee, and in its shadows her skin looked like velvet.

Sam was confused, "But . . . "

"Yeah I know, Sam," she laughed. "That doesn't mean I don't like the sun. You could use a little color yourself, white boy," she smirked, touching the tip of her finger to his forearm. He looked down. The skin of his arm was a pale, creamy white with fine, white-blond hairs trailing over it. He supposed she was right, he would probably look better with a tan.

"So just the pool huh?" he asked, restarting the conversation.

"Well, we always go on vacation. This year we have a family reunion in Atlanta, then we're going to the Outer Banks for two weeks."

"Where's that?" Sam asked. Before moving to Ohio, Sam had only been out of Tennessee to go to baseball tournaments across the border in Kentucky.

"It's a string of islands on the coast of North Carolina. It's absolutely beautiful. The weather's always perfect, and it's warm enough to swim but not so hot that you feel like you're gonna bake if you just wanna lay on the sand and read a book. And at night there's always a warm breeze and moonlight on the waves and we rent a beach house and just sit on the porch for hours talking and laughing and drinking virgin Pina Coladas."

Sam smiled. He liked the way Mercedes lit up when she talked about her family or vacationing or something she was really excited about. She pushed one of her thick curls behind her ear.

"I think you'd really like it, too," she gushed.

"Why's that?"

"There were like a million shipwrecks there back in the day, so they call it the Graveyard of the Atlantic. There's a museum there about it and everything!"

Sam's eyes widened. Shipwrecks? That meant like, pirates, right? He loved pirates. Pirates were awesome. When he was six he really wanted to be a pirate when he grew up. How freakin' cool would that be? You could run around the ocean forever stealing everyone's stuff and making out with hot girl pirates. And wear an eye patch. He felt his inner nerd struggling to free himself, but slowly, quietly, tried to stuff him back in. He'd never see this place Mercedes was talking about. For the foreseeable future, he'd struggle to even keep his head above water in Lima, Ohio. He probably wouldn't go to college, and he'd spend at least the first years of his life post high school working some menial job and struggling to take care of himself and support his family at the same time.

"That sounds really nice."

Sam had meant it genuinely, but a hint of sadness must have crept through in his voice or his eyes, because Mercedes' eyes darkened a bit and she immediately stopped gushing about how awesome her summer was going to be.

"This summer won't be all fun and games, though," Mercedes added, trying to backtrack a bit. Sam knew she was doing it for his benefit and felt bad. He really did want her to be happy and have the most amazing summer ever. He wasn't jealous, just happy for her, and he hoped he hadn't come across that way. "Every summer I have to fill in for my dad's secretary for a week while she's on vacation. He pays me but it's so so awful and boring working for your dad and scheduling teeth cleanings. Ick."

Mercedes shuddered and Sam laughed. He guessed teeth were a lot grosser than pizzas . . . even though pizza, when you spent a long enough part of your day with it, got pretty nasty too. When the movie ended, Sam drove Mercedes back to her house—a beautiful, two-story white colonial on a cul-de-sac. Her mom had clearly spent a lot of time gardening, because their home looked like the front cover of a Home & Garden magazine, with purple and blue hydrangeas blooming against the white siding. Sam hopped out of the driver's seat of his dad's truck and stepped around to open the door for her. He held her hand and helped her avoid the rusting runner.

He walked her to her front door, and he and Mercedes both noticed the curtain on an upstairs window moving at the same time. Sam smirked, and Mercedes blushed.

"Don't worry, Daddy was just a little nervous about me going out tonight. It's not like I go out all the time."

"It's ok, if this was Tennessee, there'd be a shot gun pointed at my head right now. Southern boys know better," he said with an intentionally cheesy wink. He leaned down to kiss the top of her head, just as he had done at prom. Mercedes smiled up at him.

"Am I gonna see you again sometime?" Mercedes asked. Tomorrow would be the last day of school, and up until now, neither of them had made much of an attempt to see each other outside of glee club.

"I hope so," he answered honestly.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

**Hey guys, so I decided on a shorter chapter this time because there were supposed to be two other parts to this one and it would've just gotten wayyy too long. So that stuff will be coming up next. Enjoy this one, and as always, I appreciate the reviews!**

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Sam pushed against the sticking door to the motel room with his shoulder, trying to get the damn thing to budge. He couldn't remember if the door had always been this difficult, or if it was a new development. Either way, all he knew was that it took three jams with his shoulder and a little extra action from his hip to get the thing open. He tried to make as little noise entering as possible; his brother and sister ought to be asleep by now.

Sure enough, in the center of the bed, Stevie was asleep on his back, and Stacy was sprawled across his tiny chest, drooling all over his nightshirt. Sam couldn't hold back a tired smile. They had grown so much in the last six months. Not just physically, though that was true too, but they were really starting to develop into real people. Before, when their lives had been comfortable, the two younger Evans children had bickered almost constantly, stealing each other's toys, pummeling each other when their parents weren't looking, and fighting Sam on almost everything he tried to get them to do.

Sam had anticipated a complete nightmare when they were all forced to move into one room together. His little brother and sister, as cute and blonde and angelic as they looked, could be little monsters when they wanted to be, and they could make his life a complete hell. But somehow, for kids who were just eight and ten, they figured out that something was wrong and that the rest of their family needed them to be good. They still fought once in a while, and Stevie still used Stacy's innocence to goad her into doing things that would get her in trouble for him, but now they were more like partners in crime. They leaned on each other and supported each other. When a little boy on the playground at school called Stacy homeless, Stevie, a big fifth grader, scared him off. When another kid made fun of Stevie for having an accent, Stacy stomped right down on that boy's toe. It was cute, really.

They were being so good, so much better than other kids their age. Sam hated the idea that they had to grow up without so much, but he was doing his best. They all were. At least Stevie and Stacy would know what it was like to go without, so someday, when they had everything they needed, they would appreciate it all more. Not like some of the spoiled little brats Sam saw running around the supermarket when he ran errands for his mom. He only hoped that he and his parents could make it happen for them sooner rather than later.

Sam would never admit it to anybody, but he was getting worn out too. Working now was better than working during the school year when he had homework, football, and glee club to worry about, but the forty hour weeks were getting him down. He felt like he spent all his waking time at the pizza place or on the road delivering pizzas, and when you considered that his hours were 3:30 to 11:30, the truth was that he really did. When school first let out, Mercedes and his other friends would call to see if he wanted to do things with them—catch another movie, go to a party, hang out at the mall—but he was always busy. He tried to do things with them on his days off, but he had to babysit the kids anyway, and most of the time he just wanted to sleep.

None of them had realized how difficult finding work would be. His dad's unemployment check was barely minimum wage, but if he took another minimum wage job, even if just to try to get more hours, he'd lose the unemployment and he'd lose the time he was able to spend looking for real, substantial work. The three of them had discussed the issue and agreed that it was better for him to take the unemployment check while it was available and spend the time driving hours in all directions to interview for positions that would pay a salary.

His mom was trying, too, but it seemed like there were only menial service positions available. She wasn't above doing that kind of work, especially if it would take some of the pressure off of Sam, but the managers seemed to think she was. They took one look at her, a well-groomed mother of three in her forties, took a look at her resume, which contained a college degree, and deemed her overqualified. She tried to convince them that she was a good, hard, obedient worker, but no McDonald's manager liked the idea of a worker with a brain and family commitments. They liked sixteen-year-old kids who they could pay minimum wage, give the least favorable hours, and boss around.

Sam flopped down into a folding plastic chair and started unlacing his sneakers. He was growing, and they were too small for his cramped feet, but they were so worn that his toes were almost poking through anyway, giving them some relief. He dropped his socks and sneakers into a corner and pulled off his uniform shirt, tossing that into the big black garbage bag they used as a hamper. Releasing a long sigh he hadn't realized he was holding in, Sam lowered his elbows to his knees and settled his head into his hands. He began slowly running his fingers through his hair, massaging his scalp. God his hair was getting long; he really did need a cut.

"You have a visitor, Sam," his dad's groggy voice called out from the dark.

Sam shot up from the chair. His dad usually waited up for him until he got home from work, but tonight he had found him dozing on the bed next to the kids. Basically, he scared the crap out of him. Once Sam's heart stopped racing, the confusion set in. It was midnight. Who would possibly be there this late? And who would his parents actually let him see this late?

He wandered back out the door in his bare feet and found Quinn sitting on the porch in the shadows, reading a novel by the light of a streetlamp. He must've been really tired from all that smiling and making change, because he missed her on the way in.

"Quinn? What are you doing here?"

Quinn had been really, unbelievably helpful lately. Three days a week, there was a gap of a few hours when no one could be home to watch the kids. On those days, Quinn would pick them up at 4 o'clock from the free summer day camp the school ran from 1 to 4 and take them back to the motel to make them sandwiches for dinner and play with them until one of Sam's parents made it back around 7. Sometimes, Quinn even took them back to her house to watch movies or play video games or splash around in the pool in her backyard. Those days were filled with luxuries the kids weren't used to, and at night, it was all Sam could do to get them to fall asleep because they were so drunk with excitement. Sam would be eternally grateful to Quinn for helping them through this. Whatever she thought of him—and the last time they actually spoke, it didn't seem like much—she put it aside and loved the two most important people in the world to him like they were her own. He owed her, owed her at the very least a thank you, but because she only came over when he couldn't be there himself, he rarely saw her. Well, except for in church, but he figured he was supposed to talk to God there, not pretty girls.

Quinn's eyes widened a bit, and she stared at him silently. He stared back at her, waiting for an answer. When her brows raised and her eyes began dipping provocatively down his body, he finally looked down at his bare chest.

"Oh! Sorry."

He lunged back into the room and dug out a t-shirt, pulling it over his head. It looked ridiculous with the khakis he was still wearing, and in the rush he messed up his stupidly long hair pretty badly, but he figured if Quinn was willing to come over to a seedy motel at midnight, it was probably important and she wouldn't care much what he looked like. He headed back out onto the porch and closed the door quietly, plopping down ungracefully next to her on the steps.

"So what's up? Isn't your mom gonna freak out that you're here this late? I know she doesn't exactly approve of our living situation."

"Nah," Quinn shrugged. "It's Saturday night, so she pretty much lets me do what I want. I've got her convinced you're charity," she gently nudged him with her shoulder and he smiled. "Besides, she's got a new _boyfriend_. She's out with him."

"Oh," Sam paused, trying to read Quinn's expression. "How's that?"

Quinn shrugged again, setting her open paperback face down on her knee and turning to really face him for the first time since they sat down to talk. Her eyes were luminous in the silver spotlight of the moon and the streetlamp, and her lashes cast deep shadows across them. Her skin was pale with a hint of blush at her cheekbones, and the night was so still that he could hear the faint murmur of her breath pushing past her slightly parted lips.

"It's all right, I guess. He's pretty nice. And handsome, mom says," she paused. "I dunno, I think he looks like dad."

Sam wrapped his arms loosely around his knees, looking across his shoulder to Quinn, studying her.

"You miss him?" he asked.

"Sometimes," she whispered.

A long silence passed between them, but unlike their conversation at the Lima Bean, this time it felt comfortable. Sam was content to leave her to her thoughts and not interrupt her with whatever gem of conversation he could come up with. But he was beginning to wonder what she came for in the first place.

"Anyway," she started, drawing in a breath and visibly brightening up. "I feel like I haven't seen you in forever! What's it been now, three weeks?"

"The, uh, the last time we talked you weren't exactly thrilled with me."

Quinn grinned, "No, I wasn't. I don't like being told things. Eventually, I came to the same conclusion as you did, but I like figuring it out myself."

Sam snorted, "Imagine that. Me being right about something."

Quinn leaned into his side, "Once in a great while."

Sam stared up into the porch rafters, examining the world through the yellow haze of his bangs. A single, unshaded bulb hung from an open socket and the first of the summer's insects buzzed around it.

"I'm sorry it came across like that, I didn't mean it like that."

"Like what?

"Like I was telling you what's good for you. Lord knows I barely know what's good for me."

"It's ok, Sam. It was sweet of you to care enough to bother."

Sam glanced at her from beneath his hair. He had to admit, having hair that fell in your eyes, as annoying as it was, had its advantages. Like ninja stealth. Unfortunately, she was looking right at him and it didn't matter anyway.

"So, um, how's Mercedes?"

His lips puffed out and he blew a stream of air upwards, knocking the hair out of his face.

"I dunno really."

"Oh," Quinn paused. "Haven't you seen her?"

"Nah," he pulled at a thread where a hole was forming in the knee of his jeans. "Not since our date at the movies."

"Wasn't good?"

"No, no. It was. It was really nice. She's really easy to talk to and she's really interesting and she's done so much cool stuff she's got a million things to talk about. And she doesn't look at me like I'm stupid or anything."

Quinn bit back a frown. "You're not stupid, Sam."

"Ha. Thanks."

"So . . . How come you haven't seen her again?"

"Same reason I haven't seen you, I guess," he shrugged. "Every time she calls I'm not there. Every time she wants to hang out, I'm not there."

"I'm sorry."

"Why?" he asked, flashing her his giant, patented, I'm-the-happiest-most-excited-person-in-the-freakin-world smile. He knew it couldn't fail. It convinced people no matter what, no matter how he really felt. "I'm good."

"I dunno. You know. I just . . . feel bad."

"Don't."

"Sam?"

"Uh huh?"

"I wanna see you more often."

"Quinn, I'd like that, but I, I really have to work."

"Oh, I know you do. I understand that. But you have, what? Wednesdays and Sundays off? So how bout we do Wednesday afternoon with the kids and we'll make brunch so you can sleep late. And I'll still see you Sundays at church, so maybe you can come over and hang out for a couple hours at mine? And I wanna make this our Saturday night thing."

"Our Saturday night thing?"

"Yeah, I mean, it's not like you can do anything else on a Saturday night, so I'd like to come hang out with you on the veranda for an hour when you get out of work while the weather's warm."

"The veranda?" Sam asked with a smirk, looking around at the worn, broken wood planks stained with cheap wine and beer. Half burnt cigarette butts were stuffed in between the cracks.

"Yes," she laughed. "Can't you just see us sitting here, sipping lemonade? I'll wear my best white sundress and my straw hat."

Sam smiled. If he squinted hard enough, he could almost see it.

"Saturday night it is, then."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

**Hey guys! Sorry for the delay in putting up this chapter. The real world has calmed down for me a bit now, so I should be making more frequent updates. I'll shoot for weekly! So I know I'm walking a fine line here with both Quinn and Mercedes in the story and neither of them being a straight up bitch ho that we all love to hate, but I'm doing my very best to do both girls justice. I feel like there's a story there between the two girls that the real writers were too bored to tell, so as always, I'll have my go at it. Enjoy the chapter, and as always, I sincerely appreciate your reviews!**

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Sam felt a sinking in his gut as he pulled up to the next house, a stack of pizzas in tow. A white house, pretty, with a manicured lawn and blue and purple flowers. Hydrangea, he thought she'd called them. It was 7:00 on a Tuesday, just at the opening end of the dinnertime rush. The mid-June sun was bright and still warm enough in the early evening that children all along the street were running around in bathing suits, launching themselves at slip and slides and jumping through sprinklers.

Sam willed himself out of the truck and walked slowly around the front to retrieve the pies from the passenger's seat. Four large pies—two meat lovers, two veggie lovers. He sighed, pulling his company issued baseball cap as low over his eyes as it would go and picking up the heavy stack. At least this stupid job was keeping his chest and arms strong. He walked slowly up the path to the front door as if he was a death row prisoner marching to the chair. Sam pressed the bell and mumbled "pizza delivery," not loud enough for anyone inside to actually hear him, then looked down, pointing the bill of his hat down at the hot boxes.

He heard the sound of heavy footsteps inside, and the door opened. Again, Sam muttered "pizza delivery" and held the boxes out to whoever had answered the door. He kept his head too low to actually see who it was. Two strong, dark hands reached out and lifted the boxes from Sam's arms as if they were no heavier than a sack of feathers. It happened so quickly that Sam's arms actually sprung up momentarily from the loss of the heavy pressure. He dropped them to his sides, stuffing his hands into his jeans pockets.

"Lemme just go set these down in the kitchen. I'll be right back to pay ya," the deep voice stated.

Sam nodded, eyes down, exploring the intricate patterns of the brick pavers in the walk. When he felt the presence of the man—he was now sure that it was a man—back in the open door, Sam dug the receipt out of his pocket and stared at it for a second, making sure he got the numbers right before he said anything.

"86.50 please."

The hands reached into the man's back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Sam watched as the fingers dipped into the worn leather, pulling out a few bills, and then paused.

"Hey!" the deep voice called out, "Aren't you that boy that took Cedes to the movies back a few weeks ago?"

Sam froze. Caught. He nodded quickly, hoping the man—he was assuming it was Mr. Jones, though he still hadn't found the nerve to look—would let it drop and it would all be over soon.

"Well where you been, boy?" he asked jovially. "Cedes' been talkin' about you but you never come 'round."

Sam felt his cheeks burning. His hands were digging deeply into his pockets. He wished he could crawl into a hole.

"I, um, I work a lot, sir."

Sam peaked up, hoping the taller man couldn't see the shame in his eyes and flushing across his cheeks. Mercedes' dad was tall, at least 6'5, and was a gigantic man. Sam knew that Mr. Jones was a dentist, but he looked like he easily could have been an offensive lineman for the Cleveland Browns. He had broad, muscular shoulders, tree trunk arms, and a protruding belly. His hairline was receding a bit. Sam didn't dare look up at him long enough to get a sense of what the man's face looked like.

That night, when Sam brought Mercedes home from the movie theater, he had been worried that Mr. Jones would kill him. Now, he felt like maybe if he killed him it would be better than the alternative—Mr. Jones seeing the homeless written all over him and deeming him unworthy of his beautiful daughter's attention. He had seen the way things had changed with Mrs. Fabray. The first time he had met her, she had eyed him coldly and examined him thoroughly, but had been generally polite. As his home situation became more precarious, though, the weariness started to show in his eyes. His clothes frayed, and he constantly looked like he needed to eat or sleep or both. It was at that point that Mrs. Fabray had made it pretty clear that she didn't approve of Sam as Quinn's boyfriend anymore. Of course, Mrs. Fabray was a little blonde woman, and Mr. Jones was a giant, terrifying man. So there was that. And he was some random white boy. Great.

"Well come on in, boy! Cedes' been wantin' to see you!"

"Oh, um," Sam started mumbling, confused. He felt heavy, like his concrete feet were frozen to the ground, but Mr. Jones' massive, skull crushing hand was on his shoulder, tugging him inside.

"Come on here in the kitchen," Mr. Jones said, leading Sam through his home. "We got some company over."

Sam followed silently.

"Cedes!" he bellowed through the hall, "Your friend brought the pizza!"

"Huh?" Sam heard her voice calling before her saw her.

He hadn't seen her in weeks. Not since that day in mid-May. She stepped into the kitchen, the confusion clear on her face. She wasn't wearing much. An oversized t-shirt barely brushed the tops of her full thighs, and the straps of her bathing suit top peaked out from beneath the collar. She had her hair pulled up off her neck, and bare feet were tracking little pools of water across the floor. The shirt was clinging to her in spots where her skin was still wet and her boobs were kinda like . . . right there. Lots of boobs. All over the place boobs.

"Sam?"

They both blushed at the same time. Sam dipped the brim of his hat back towards the floor, and Mercedes tugged at the hem of her t-shirt, trying to casually slide over behind a chair. Thank God Mr. Jones and his wife were busy pulling plates out of the cabinet and passing them around their large kitchen table, so they didn't notice their daughter's embarrassment or Sam's.

"Well aren't you going to introduce us girl?" a tall, light skinned woman with slender legs and a long, graceful neck asked, tsk-tsking Mercedes.

"Umm, yeah," Mercedes tried. "Auntie Beverly, Uncle Don, Ronnie," she addressed them, working her way around the table, "Mr. and Mrs. Tinsley, this is Sam. He's my friend from school and glee club. Sam, this is my aunt and uncle, my cousin Veronica, and you know Shane from football. Our families are really close."

Sam did know Shane from football. Kid was a freakin' beast of a left tackle. Before he got his throwing arm torn off, Sam had liked quarterbacking behind him. Ain't nobody getting through that line with that house of a kid stuffing it up. He could sit in the pocket and wait what felt like a year to throw, and some little linebacker would be flailing his toothpick arms at Shane. Sam couldn't help but notice the way Mercedes blushed when she mentioned Shane, and the way he smiled at her.

"Sir, ma'am," Sam mumbled, nodding briefly to each of the adults. "Hey Shane."

"Ooh Cedes he fine!" Veronica, who looked to be about seven or eight, declared, deepening the blush on Sam's cheeks to a cherry red. Mercedes' eyes opened wide.

"Shhh Ronnie," her mother said, smoothing the little puffs of hair tied up on her daughter's head, "We don't say those kinds of things about boys to their faces. You'll embarrass him. Good girls wait until boys leave the room to gush about them."

The little girl seemed content with that answer, and was distracted by a plate coming her way anyway. "Pizza pizza!" she meeped. Sam had to hold back the smirk that was forming. Her Little Cesar impression was pretty good.

"Sam, would you like to join us for a slice of pizza?" Mrs. Jones asked. Sam only glanced up at her for a second, but he could tell she looked just like Mercedes.

"Thank you, ma'am, I can't though. I have to get back to work. I'll get fired if somebody complains that the pizzas were cold."

"Ok then sweetheart. Let me walk you to the door."

"Byyyyyyyyye Sam!" Ronnie purred, batting her eyelashes and waving like she just won the Miss America pageant. Mercedes glared at her and pushed her arm down to her side.

"Bye, Sam," she offered, much more subdued.

Back at the front door, Mrs. Jones paid and tipped him for the pizza, then opened the door to let him out.

"Sam?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Sweetheart, Mercedes mentioned that your family is going through a bit of a tough time, and I just wanted you to know that if you ever need anything, anything at all, our home is always open to you. And your family. I don't like to brag_ too_ much, but I've got a bit of a reputation around this town for my mean cooking," she joked.

Sam smiled, but inside, his heart felt like it was about to break. The bad things never made him feel like he was going to cry. Not when they lost their home, not when Quinn cheated, not when he was miserable and tired and hungry late at night. He had been taught well by his parents and the church that the bad things you just keep your head down and soldier through. But when people were good to him, when they were so unbelievably kind and generous that he saw God's grace lighting their eyes and carrying their voices, that's when he felt his heart so impossibly full that it couldn't bear anymore.

"Thank you, ma'am. That means a lot."

"Ok sweetie."

Sam walked straight back to his truck without glancing back, afraid that if he did, Mrs. Jones would still be there and she'd see the uncertainty and the fear in his eyes. The fear that no matter what he did, it wouldn't be enough. He hopped back up into the truck and started the engine. Running his hands once through his hair to collect himself, he took a deep breath and started off for his next delivery.

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Later that evening, Quinn sat in her silver BMW, parked outside the house where she once lived. She knew what she was there for, but she wasn't exactly sure what she planned on doing, or how it would be received. She wasn't great at this sort of thing. In fact, she had never really tried it before.

She traveled slowly up the walk to the front door and rang the bell, clasping her carefully manicured hands in front of her. She listened closely, but didn't hear anyone moving around. From the living room, she could hear the faint, tinkling sound of canned sitcom laughter. It was late, almost 10:00, maybe they wouldn't be answering the door. Quinn waited another minute, enjoying the cool breeze in the night air and the scent of the summer flowers it carried with it. She felt like twirling and dancing, letting the breeze fill out her skirt while she skipped and frolicked through the grass like one of the dainty fairies from A Midsummer Night's Dream. But instead she stood, still and patient, while carefree, light-as-air Quinn lived on in her daydream.

Eventually, she heard the familiar sound of heavy footsteps, and a booming voice call out, "Who is it?"

"Hi Mr. Jones," Quinn said, by way of an answer.

The door flew open, and before she could steady herself, two massive arms wrapped her into a bear hug and squeezed so tightly that she was lifted an inch off the ground, losing one of her flats in the process. Quinn smiled brightly. She had grown up in a home where emotions were considered disadvantages in business because they allowed your negotiating partner to see where your vulnerabilities lie and exploit them. To get what you want, you have to play it cool and not show the other side your hand. That's how you close a big deal, her father always told her. She had forgotten what it was like to be around people who wore their hearts on their sleeves, never tried to fake emotions or hide them from each other, and always had more than enough love to pass around. It was freeing. It was the same thing that drew her to Sam.

"Quinn! Come inside, come in! Honey, Quinnie's here! To what do we owe the pleasure, Madame?" the big man asked, faking snobbery. There was no hint of malice in his voice. No lingering question of where she'd been, or why she hadn't been over to visit with them or to hang out with Mercedes. No implication that she had taken more than she was welcome to. Just genuine surprise and joy at the return of a girl he considered his daughter.

When she had moved back into the five bedroom house her mother had won in the divorce proceedings, Quinn had done what her mother said was polite. What Ann Landers might have suggested in a situation like this one. Her mom was always reading, quoting, and worshipping Ann Landers, the epitome of politeness. She had mailed the Joneses a thank you card along with a delivered flower arrangement. She hadn't been back to visit. She had tried to get her life back to exactly the place it was before her pregnancy and Beth. She rejoined the Cheerios as captain, she started dating the hot new kid quarterback, and once again, she started walking the halls like she owned them. And Mercedes wasn't part of her life before Beth, so she wasn't part of it after. Although she was never rude to Mercedes in the way she was rude to Rachel, if she wanted her perfect life back, it meant pretending none of it ever happened.

But by watching what Sam was going through and how it was changing him—how it was making him more mature, more grateful, more considerate—Quinn was beginning to realize that maybe it had been a mistake to try to pretend like her pregnancy was a dirty secret that she could pretend never happened. Trying to go back to the way things were meant that nothing had changed and she hadn't learned anything. But she did want to learn, and she did want to grow. That's why she was here, really. It just took a lot of effort to go against her programming.

"Well I, I was hoping I could talk to Mercedes," she asked, polite as ever, but with a hint of nerves.

"Of course, sweetheart, of course," Mr. Jones said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and bringing her into his home. "She's just up in her room. Cedes!" he called up the stairs. "Quinnie's here!"

Mercedes padded across the carpeted landing in her pajama pants, her hair wrapped around curlers. Quinn wasn't sure if the look on her face could be described as surprised, confused, happy, or all three, but Mercedes didn't seem to be angry with her.

"Hey Quinn," she smiled. Mercedes had always seemed a bit quieter, a bit shyer to Quinn than her boisterous, energetic parents. "What are you doing here? You wanna come up?"

Quinn nodded and headed up the steps. She followed Mercedes into her room and plopped into the plush pink disc chair that she had spent many nights curled up in, crying to Mercedes about losing her mom and dad, about trying to cope with Puck, or about her dismay at her changing body. Mercedes, for all her diva strutting in glee club, was a quiet, considerate listener. She never had much advice to give; she hadn't been in Quinn's situation before and she seemed to understand that. But she always, always listened. Mercedes sat down at the edge of her bed, her back straight, legs crossed Indian style, waiting for Quinn to explain.

Quinn sighed. She'd never attempted a conversation like this. Quinn was a product of unbridled ambition. Like her mom and dad, when she wanted something, she went after it, and stayed focused on her target until she got it. Technically speaking, she didn't steamroll people in her way on purpose; she just didn't even notice them there when she had her eyes on something. But the problem was that what she wanted couldn't be acquired that way.

"So, I know we haven't hung out much lately, " Quinn started uneasily. "I was hoping I could talk to you about something."

Mercedes nodded, interested, "Ok, what's up?"

"Well, I wanted to talk to you about Sam."

"About Sam?" Mercedes asked, her brows crinkling in confusion.

"Yeah, well, I . . . How do you, um, how do you feel about him?"

"Oh," Mercedes paused, surprised, clearly not expecting that. "I love Sam," she said cheerily.

"You, you love him?"

"Yeah, I mean, we all do right? Who doesn't love Sam?"

"Oh, no I meant like, how do you feel about him. You're dating him?"

"Oh! Um, well not really. I mean, prom was really nice, and we went to that movie right at the end of school, and he was sweet and cute. You know. I thought maybe there would be something there, but I haven't seen him in forever."

"Do you still think you like, wanna try things with him?"

"Oh my God, Quinn Fabray you totally like him!"

Quinn blushed a bit, and allowed the grin to show on her face. "Yeah, maybe, I mean, yeah, I think I do. I don't know."

"Aww, Quinn!" Mercedes smiled.

"So, I mean, I'm just . . . uhh," Quinn started. She recollected, and tried again. She was unfamiliar with stuttering and tripping over her words. "If you wanna be with him Mercedes . . ."

"So wait, you're saying that if I told you right now that I like Sam, and I wanna go out with him, even though you like him too . . . you're just gonna let it go?

Quinn picked at the chipping polish on her nails, fighting the urge not to peel her cuticles.

"I'm trying to be better. I'm trying to think about how the things I do affect other people. Finn and Rachel didn't think about me for a second, and they made me feel like crap. I don't wanna be like them," she paused, adding quietly, "I don't wanna be like my dad."

Mercedes nodded quietly, knowing that nothing needed to be said between them. She understood from the many nights Quinn had spent curled crying in that chair exactly how she felt. The moment passed in silence.

"You know Shane Tinsley?"

"Football player Shane?"

Mercedes nodded.

"Yeah, I know him. Why?"

The corners of Mercedes' mouth started to twitch upwards, containing a smile. "We've been spending a lot of time together lately."

"You like him?"

Mercedes considered it. "I don't know yet. He's really fun to be around and I've known him my whole life. Plus, he makes me feel like a movie star. He looks at me like I'm the hottest girl in the world. He doesn't look at any of the Cheerios like that, just me."

Quinn smiled. "You need to be with somebody who chooses you first, Cedes. You deserve that." Mercedes returned the grin.

"So, um, what about Sam?" Quinn asked.

"Quinn, if you wanna try to see where things go with him, you've got my blessing. I love you both, and you were adorable together the first time. Just try not to break his heart this time, ok?"

Quinn smiled through the little pang she felt in her heart at the thought of how much she may have hurt Sam. When it happened, she hadn't really thought about it. She had only thought about trying to figure out whether it was Sam or Finn she wanted to be with. But all of her actions had consequences, she now understood; everything she did affected someone else.

"Hey, maybe you and Sam and me and Shane can go on a double date!" Mercedes suggested.

"Are you two like officially a thing?"

"I mean, it's not official but I know as soon as I say it is we will be."

"Is that gonna be soon?"

"I think so," Mercedes said. The excitement was clear in her eyes.

"Well, when you and Shane are official, I'll take you up on that double date."

"If Sam says yes."

"Huh?"

"You mean we can go on the double date if Sam wants to go out with you again."

"Oh, yeah, I guess."

That was another thing Quinn hadn't really thought of. Sam had been so in love with her, so infatuated when they dated in the fall and winter that she had never considered the fact that he might not want to be with her again. He had thrown her for a loop when she had mentioned at the Lima Bean that she might still be able to love him and he hadn't jumped at the opportunity to ask her out right then. Then weeks had passed, and Sam had been nothing but friendly, but he hadn't made any attempt to kiss her, to touch her, or even to ask her out.

Since they had started spending time together on Wednesday and Sunday mornings, along with their Saturday night dates, they had undoubtedly grown closer. Quinn had been slowly but surely opening up to him, turning her whole heart over to him.

Most of their time on Wednesdays was spent with the kids. Quinn would buy groceries and bring them over to the motel, and she and Sam would cook pancakes or French toast and bacon or sausage for the kids, luxuries they hadn't had in over a year, since they had been cut down to bran cereal and skim milk long before they lost the house. On Sundays, they spent most of their time splashing around or sunning by Quinn's pool.

It was on their Saturday night dates on the porch that they talked and got close. Quinn told him more about her life and about her feelings than she told anyone besides Mercedes. She told him about the devastation of her father's rejection, how he missed her pregnancy and the birth of her daughter, and how his visits with her now were painfully awkward. She told him about feeling like Santana and all the other girls, even Rachel, were out to bring her crashing down from the impossible height of her perfection. She told him about the insecurities she still had about her body, and about the stretch marks on her hips and belly. She told him, too, about how she wanted to do something big, get out of this town. How now that she was free of the idea of Finn, staying in Lima and being an ex prom queen real estate agent seemed like a dead end road.

Sam always listened to her with patience and curiosity. It was less often that he told her about something that was really bothering him, but when he did, she listened with the same generosity he did. Still, as close as they were getting, he never moved to kiss her; his hugs were nothing more than an exchange of affection between friends.

She guessed technically she was going to have to push him to take their relationship one step further, and she hadn't really considered the possibility of rejection. Normally, when she wanted a guy to want her, she would start to flirt in ways that he couldn't even recognize as —coy smiles, shy glances from beneath painted lashes, a casual swaying of her hips as she walked by. They ended up desperate for her without even realizing that she was into them too. She was sure she could do that with Sam and it would work; it always worked. But she didn't really want to this time. She didn't want to waste what they had been building together.

Quinn hugged Mercedes and thanked her for being a good friend and being there for her always. She promised Mr. and Mrs. Jones that she would stop by to visit more often. As she left the home where she once lived through the toughest year of her life, she felt confident that for once, she had done the right thing.

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Quinn sat on the top step of the motel porch, her legs resting on either side of Sam's hips as he sat on the step below her. It was nearing noon, and the kids had already been fed and were now running around the motel parking lot, wearing themselves to the bone in the hot June sun, attacking each other with the Super Soakers their motel neighbor had lent them. As he breathed evenly, Quinn could feel the steady rise and fall of Sam's sides and back against the insides of her thighs.

Locks of blond hair tickled the skin of Quinn's thighs as they fell to the wooden planks beneath her. She worked the scissors through Sam's hair, always threading her fingers between a lock of hair and his scalp, trying to keep all the cuts the same length, and trying not to cut him in the process. She was no expert hair stylist, but he was getting so frustrated by his hair in his eyes that she figured she could do as good a job as the next amateur. Strand by strand, his blond mop top fell away, revealing an older, sexier boy Quinn hadn't even realized was in there to be found. When he turned to smile at her and thank her, Quinn noticed for the first time how bright his green eyes were, and how strong his jaw line was. His wide lips somehow stopped looking comical and became enticing. He didn't look like the sweet, innocent, boy next door anymore, that was for sure.

Facing away from her again, Sam leaned his back into Quinn. She wrapped an arm loosely around his broad shoulders and ruffled her other hand through his hair, dusting out the stray strands. She could feel the muscles in his shoulders relaxing under her touch, and he sighed, leaning his head back against her chest and closing his eyes. Quinn couldn't help wrapping her legs a bit tighter around his hips and her arms tighter around his shoulders. She was so small compared to him, too small to be holding him like this, but he felt so good in her arms, like nothing had ever changed between them. A gentle breeze brushed across them, cooling the heat in their skin as they watched the kids across the parking lot.

Quinn brushed her fingers through Sam's hair one more time, then traced them lightly down over the shell of his ear. She leaned close, her lips hovering, breath warm, and wondered if he could feel the same tension, the same desire to touch him, as she was feeling. Breathing deeply, she pressed her lips to the tiny patch of skin between his ear and his hairline, inhaling the scent of warm skin and soap. He tensed slightly, but he didn't move away. She moved lower, letting her blonde waves fall over his shoulder as she touched her lips to his throat. She could feel the constriction in his throat as he swallowed, and she opened her eyes to see a faint blush traveling over his fair skin.

When he turned to look at her, she could see the clouds in his green eyes—clouds of confusion, of uncertainty, and of need. Quinn parted her lips slightly and brought them within an inch of his. She had come this far; he would need to do the rest. To prove to her that he wanted this too. She watched in slow motion as his blond lashes fluttered down to his cheeks and he closed the fraction of electric space between them.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

**Hey guys, hope you enjoy the chapter. It's mostly smut, so warnings for that. As always, I appreciate your reviews!**

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Sam pulled back from the kiss to suck in a ragged breath, letting his head thud back against the roasting flagstones. He had to close his eyes. He had to. Because if he left them open, he would see Quinn in a white bikini, still wet from the pool, stark against her bronzed summer skin, straddling him and grinding on him slowly, mercilessly. He would see her hair, waving and wet at the tips, surrounding his face like a curtain as she leaned back down to press her lips to his again. He would see her breasts, small but barely contained by her bikini top, hovering inches from his face. And then he would die. On the Lord's Day, no less. God help him. And Jesus, too. This girl would send him straight to hell in a flaming chariot.

"Please Quinn," he gasped. "I can't. I can't."

It was nearly a whimper, and he was beyond caring that he sounded like a begging, blubbering idiot. All he knew was that she wasn't going to let him get off, and if she kept doing this to him, he was going to die an ugly, painful death by spontaneous combustion. And then she would have to scrape his remains off the pool deck, and nobody wanted that.

Sam wasn't exactly sure how they got here. They were supposed to be taking things slowly this time, trying to be mature. Sam would be the first one to admit that he had made a mistake the first time, trying to move things forward so fast. Part of it was that he was new and he wanted to fit in. He was so nervous about being the new kid that for a few minutes at the beginning of the year, he entertained the fevered dream of being the starting quarterback, dating the head cheerleader, and everyone liking him. He didn't know why this was so important, and it didn't seem like a big deal anymore, but at the time, being liked had been one of the few things that really mattered to him.

Part of it, too, was infatuation. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. It was those freakin' eyes. Sometimes a deep, honey brown, sometimes a forest green, they were always large and luminous and had this way of staring up at him from beneath her long lashes. They were mesmerizing, and he couldn't stop staring at them. Every time he looked at Quinn, it was like he got real stupid, real quick. Well, stupider than normal. Because everything else seemed to fall away. He didn't hear people asking him questions, he didn't see other girls looking at him, and he didn't think of anything other than what was immediately in front of him. She was just that beautiful.

And part of it, of course, was that he genuinely cared for her. Maybe he shouldn't have given her a promise ring, and maybe he shouldn't have told her that he wanted to marry her someday, but he meant every word of what he had said to her that day. That he really cared about her. That he would be true to her and that he would never pressure her. That he wanted to be the kind of guy she could be proud to call her boyfriend. When Sam fell for someone, he fell hard. He opened himself up and allowed himself to see that person and all the good in them and all the potential for what they could someday be. He had no defenses for his heart, no guards. He just gave it freely.

But all of it together had been too much. They had moved too fast, and looking back over it, Sam could see why it had crashed and burned. It would always hurt that she cheated, but it only hurt as bad as it did because of what it demonstrated—that he had fallen head over heels in love with a girl who didn't feel the same way about him. But really, he hadn't given her enough time to feel the same way about him. Any normal human being needed some time to let their feelings grow and develop, and to sort them out. Sam just happened to not be normal. Quinn kinda was though, for the most part, and Sam tried to understand that it was natural for her to be unsure of how she felt in the months that they dated. Of course she was confused.

That's why this time—if he and Quinn were going to try a this time—they were going to take it slowly. No crazy proposals, no casual throwing around of the L word. At least that's what they had decided on the motel porch two weeks ago. Sam knew he was a bit of a moron sometimes, but he had been honestly shocked when he felt Quinn's lips brushing the back of his neck. He had given up on the idea of a romance blooming with Quinn. It wasn't that he had tried it and she had rejected him; it was more that that day back in May, at Jean Sylvester's funeral, he has resigned himself to be a good friend to Quinn, and everything seemed to be going so well on that front that he hadn't foreseen a change in the cards.

But when she initiated that kiss, in the split second it took for him to respond and raise his lips to hers, he tried to think of whether or not this was right. He tried to think of how she had been acting in the previous weeks. His biggest fear, and the reason he hadn't hopped all over the opportunity to date her at the Lima Bean, was that he would be taking advantage of her vulnerability over losing Finn to Rachel in such epic fashion. As far as he could tell, though, she seemed to be fully recovered from that episode. All of the time she had spent with him—all of the Wednesday brunches they cooked and the Sundays by the pool and the late Saturday night dates on the motel porch—it all seemed to be about the two of them. Not about Finn, not about Rachel, not about a plastic crown. Just about them.

Still, though, he needed to be sure, before he made a terrible mistake that could reopen a wound he thought he'd sealed and drive Quinn back into ice queen mode forever. He eased back from the kiss before it had the chance to spark passion and slowly opened his eyes.

"Quinn, am I a rebound?" he asked, studying her for a response.

Instead of looking shocked or insulted, she appeared to be considering it carefully.

"I really care about you Sam," she started. "You've been a really good friend to me. You were there when I needed you. And I don't know if it comes across as well as I'd hope, but I've really been trying to be a good friend to you, too. I'd like to try again, you know, with us being something more, because I think maybe we could be really good for each other. But if that's not where we're at right now, your friendship is enough for me."

Sam thought that over. Honestly, it was the healthiest Quinn had sounded in a long time, and the decision seemed easy.

Not much had changed between them in the two weeks since they had officially become a couple. They still saw each other the same three days a week that they had been seeing each other, and Quinn still babysat the kids when they needed her to. No one but Mercedes knew that they were anything more than friends, but that was because no one else had been a part of what they had together, so no one else needed to enter the picture now.

Only little differences marked the change in their relationship. On Wednesdays, Quinn started coming over a bit earlier and curling up next to Sam on the bed, which he got to occupy for an extra hour or so of sleep after his parents left to look for work. It was completely innocent, since his little brother and sister still slept on the other side of the bed, but Quinn seemed to like wrapping her arm around him and curling into his back as she snoozed against him. They tried to make a bit more out of their Sundays, too. Normally, if Mrs. Fabray was around, they'd just crash and play video games for a few hours. Now, they were realizing that they liked to get out more. They enjoyed each other's company on walks, and when Sam had a few dollars left over from work, he'd take her out to get ice cream. He didn't like ice cream much, but she did, and he always insisted on paying, even though she had plenty of money to spare. He insisted that it was a gentleman thing, and that he had to salvage what little pride he had left. She understood what it meant to him, and she let him pay. Oh, and on their Saturday night porch dates, now Sam got to kiss her. Definitely an upgrade.

So far, they had lived up to their promise to each other. They were taking things slowly. No declarations of love, no offers of marriage, and no hands crawling up skirts. Which was why Sam was so confused about today.

They had gone to church as usual. Mrs. Fabray didn't think too much of Sam, his family, or their living predicament (he had once overheard her tell Quinn that homelessness was for lazy people), so she and Quinn sat apart from the Evans. But afterwards, Mrs. Fabray was going out for brunch with Alan, her new accountant boyfriend, so Sam and Quinn had the house, and more importantly the pool, to themselves.

Quinn hadn't been kidding, or even fishing for compliments, when she confided in Sam that she was still insecure about her body from her pregnancy. Each time Sam came over to her house to swim with her, he wore an old, sun-faded pair of Finn's swim trunks, but she wore a one-piece bathing suit covered by an oversized t-shirt. She insisted on swimming in the t-shirt, despite the fact that it clung to her and weighed her down, making her look like a drowned rat. At first, when Sam had asked when she was dressed up like a bag lady, Quinn would make excuses about her fair Anglo-Saxon skin and how she would burn in the direct sunlight.

Sam didn't know what Anglo-Saxon meant, and he thought maybe she had some rare disease, but when he noticed his own complexion, as milk white as hers, deepening into a summer bronze, he realized what she was doing and called her out on it. He should have known before he said anything that this was the kind of mistake guys make that infuriate their girlfriends and send them into silent treatment mode for days. But of course he didn't; at least not until it was too late. So one Sunday, shortly after they had decided to start dating again, Sam had pulled Quinn into a deep kiss and tried to start easing the t-shirt up over her bottom. Quinn pulled back abruptly and narrowed her eyes.

"What are you doing?"

"Uhh, I just, um, I thought maybe you didn't have to wear that thing today."

"I can't believe you're trying to get me naked, especially when you _know_ how I feel about that!"

"I, I wasn't!" he stammered. "It's just, we're swimming, so I thought you could wear a swimsuit, and . . ."

"Seriously, Sam? Are you really serious right now?"

"Quinn, really, I just . . . you know I think you're beautiful, and I don't understand why you need to hide from me. I'm supposed to be your boyfriend now, and you're supposed to trust me. And there's nothing wrong with you!"

He tried to dodge out of the way of a flying flip-flop, but it managed to clip him in the shoulder. He knew he wasn't the smoothest talker, but as his mind tried to race back through the brief conversation, Sam couldn't figure out what he'd said that had offended her so deeply.

"Well _you_ didn't have to carry around an eight pound baby, Sam! _You_ don't have love handles or stretch marks! You and your damn perfect body. Well, not everyone can be as perfect as you!"

Quinn had been nearly shaking with rage as she stormed back into the house. After that, she hadn't spoken to him or answered any of his calls for three days straight.

When she finally decided to let the flip-flop incident go, after profuse apologies, Sam decided it best that he never mention the t-shirt again. Occasionally, while they were making out, he would try to slide his hands up the sides of her slick one-piece suit. He wasn't trying to be pervy, he swore, he just liked feeling her close to him, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tight to his chest. She always swatted his hands away.

Today, though, he wasn't sure what had changed, but clearly it was something big. And something that had come from Quinn on her own, rather than something Sam had pushed for. When they got back from church, Sam had changed quickly and splashed immediately into the pool. It always took Quinn at least half an hour to change, so he never bothered waiting for her. He was flopping around in the deep end, trying to time how long he could stand up on a submerged noodle before falling off when he caught sight of Quinn strutting through the patio door.

She was wearing a white bikini, the thick fabric of her top biting into the flesh of her breasts. She must have been tanning on her own when Sam wasn't around because her normally fair, Anglo-Saxon-whatever skin was sun-kissed and glowing. And her whole demeanor had changed. She was standing at the edge of the pool, her hands on her hips, knee cocked out to the side. The smirk was clear in her eyes, and she held her chin high. If that girl had been shy once, you would never be able to tell now, because she was putting her body on full display, and she looked pretty damn sure of herself.

Sam's jaw dropped, and he felt his feet shooting out from under him. He kicked wildly at the noodle for a fleeting second before his feet flew up in the air and he was crashing backwards, headfirst into the water. He plunged deeply into the water and kicked for the surface. When he reemerged, gasping and shaking the water out of his hair, the smirk on Quinn's face had spread. Girl knew she was hot, and she loved seeing the things she did to him.

Quinn eased into the water, wading in about knee deep until Sam made his way over to her. His lips were parted, breathing slowly, and he couldn't help his eyes from scanning over her.

"God you're gorgeous," he breathed, his eyes burning into her.

She inched closer to him, smiling wickedly. Her nose brushed against his cheek, her breath warming his ear.

"What's gotten into you today?" Sam asked incredulously.

"I feel pretty today," she grinned.

Sam shook his head. He didn't understand girls sometimes. Well, most of the time really. And there must be an age limit on it, because for the most part, his eight-year-old sister acted the same as his ten-year-old brother. So girls must get weird sometime later, like thirteen maybe. It was beyond him how you could _feel_ pretty. People told him he was good-looking, and he figured he looked mostly the same every day. He never felt differently. Quinn looked the same today as she had the day before; just as pretty today as she had been yesterday. But whatever it was, this _feeling_, it was making the difference between an annoyed, antsy girl hiding her body under a gigantic t-shirt and this, this _vixen_. But Sam had learned his lesson, and he knew better than to ask questions. He would take what God gave him and say thank you later.

He wrapped his arms tightly around Quinn's waist, enjoying the heat of her skin against his arms, and tugged sharply. Quinn giggled and wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck. She leaned into him until her forehead rested against his, their noses brushing. Her eyes were green today and shining with a mischievous glow. He tipped his lips up to press against hers, mouth open and needing, but she pulled away coyly. So that's what game they were playing. It was the torture Sam game. Quinn had been the master of this art when they had dated the first time around. Except this time, she had betrayed a secret. A very valuable secret. Miss prim Quinn thought he was hot. And maybe, just maybe, getting him so worked up got her worked up too.

Sam walked her over to the edge of the pool and dipped them low, the cool water rippling around their shoulders. With her limbs still coiled tightly around him, he pressed her back up against the slippery tiles. He could feel himself growing between her legs, and he pressed his body to hers firmly so that she could feel it too. It was a sign of how gorgeous she was in his eyes, how much he wanted her. Her eyes slipped closed and she drew in a shallow gasp at the feel of him. Sam smirked. Maybe she did want him after all.

Inch by inch, he lowered his face closer to hers until he could feel the heat and moisture in her breath tingling against his lips. His tongue darted out to slide over his bottom lip, and her breath hitched. He had her trapped now. Rubbing his hardness against her again, he brushed his lips over hers and drew back, examining her. Her eyes were still closed, and her lips hung open. Perfect. He leaned in to kiss her again and drew her bottom lip between his, nibbling and tugging gently with his teeth. By now, he could feel a heat radiating against him that was not coming from the pool water.

When he moved close to her again, this time to enter her mouth, he found her already open and waiting, lips slack, breath ragged. His tongue swirled into her, pressing against hers and muffling the groan that she couldn't hold back. This time, he kissed her hard, desperate to show her the passion she incited in him. He knew Quinn, and he knew that a positive reaction from him, a demonstration of the explosive reaction she could produce in him, would build the self-esteem she had hidden under the t-shirt. He felt her melting into his arms, her body becoming fluid with his.

Hands on her waist, Sam plucked her easily from the water and set her down on the edge of the pool, knees dangling in front of him. She was casually crossing her arms over her belly, Sam noticed, but he would let it slide. Pushing himself up over the edge, he laid one hand against Quinn's lower back and the other behind her head and lowered her down gently onto her back on the flagstone pool deck. He settled his weight between her knees and eased down onto her. Their wet bodies dripped onto the sizzling stone, creating a shadow of hot moisture around them. Sam couldn't help it—the contact and the pressure of his hard body against her soft one was excruciating, and he ground his hips into her once before gaining control of himself. The moan it elicited from her was one of aroused approval.

As his tongue fought for control in her mouth, his hand slid down the side of her body, fingers crawling over every curve. He brushed over her hip and dipped his hand towards the wet heat he felt pulsing between her legs. Just as he was about to touch that spot where he could feel the faint throbbing, she grabbed his wrist.

"No," she commanded, and pushed hard against his chest until he was flipping onto his back.

She was just a slight thing, but she climbed on top of him with ease. She pinned his wrists back beside his head, sinking the heels of her hands into the soft flesh of his wrists until they were slightly sore. He grinned. He could have easily overpowered her, but he wouldn't. If there was one thing Quinn loved, he thought with a smirk, it was being in control.

"Stay," she ordered, and when he made no effort to move, "Good boy." Sam smiled at that. Whatever his girl liked.

She began moving on him slowly, grinding along his length. The swim trunks were doing very little to conceal the erection pointing up at his stomach, and he knew Quinn could feel everything. She dropped her lips to his, and within minutes, she was riding him so hard and kissing him so passionately that he knew if she didn't stop, he would embarrass himself. She still had his wrists pinned back, and he desperately needed her to stop, but he didn't want to throw her off of him. If sex was like this, only better, he knew his body wasn't designed for it, because surely something that felt so good wasn't supposed to kill him. He tried to cycle through horrible thoughts—Finn's mailman, Coach Beiste in Quinn's soaking bikini, plane crashes, nothing would work. All he could feel was that soft, hot, wet . . . Stop stop stoppppppppp.

"Please Quinn," he whimpered, "I can't. I can't!"

But Quinn didn't stop, just laughed at him and leaned down to kiss him again. When he felt himself starting to shudder, his shoulders shaking and his abs clenching, he pressed his eyes shut, willing his body to hold on. But before his body had a chance to boil over, he felt a shove and that crazy sensation of falling, and Sam realized he was crashing over the edge of the pool towards the chilly water. And just before he plunged into the deep end, he heard the light, playful sound of Quinn's giggling.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

**Well guys, I have no excuses for why it took me forever to get this chapter out. Pretty much just laziness, I suppose. I did start a new job, so maybe some of you will forgive me on that front, but really it's mostly because I've been caught up reading Game of Thrones. I know, I know, I need to focus and get my priorities straight. Which I will try VERY hard to do. I will try so so hard to get back into a once a week habit. Anyway, this chapter is the beginning of the turn in the weather. The calm before the calm before the storm, as it goes. I hope you all decide to stick around even though I've been bad, and enjoy the chapter! Reviews are always welcomed and appreciated.**

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Sam let his hands fall to his knees and his facemask sink to his chest, panting in the blistering August heat. Two-a-days had started on the first of the month, and he hadn't realized quite how out of shape he was. It wasn't that he was fat; exactly the opposite, actually. He had lost ten pounds over the summer from not eating nearly enough to fuel his growing body. His parents had encouraged him to eat the leftover pizza his boss always offered him at the end of the night, but he had never liked junk foods to begin with, and eventually, the congealed grease disgusted him so much that it made him retch. He liked to run in the mornings, loved it actually, but sometimes he was so tired that he would do anything for an extra hour of sleep, including missing a jog or two.

But all of that had taken a toll on his body, and he was just a bit too weak and just a step too slow. He was still one of the fastest guys on the team, in better shape than most, but under the pounding sun, he was sweating through his jersey and trying his best not to puke as he lined up at the goal line for another set of wind sprints.

There were some good things about the long, demanding practices. It meant that the school year would be starting back up in a month, and even though school itself wasn't Sam's favorite thing on earth, it meant seeing some of the people he hadn't seen in months. People like Tina, Artie, and Mercedes, who, if he wasn't in class with, he rarely got to spend time with. The start of football practices also meant seeing Finn, Puck, and Mike again. Though it couldn't be said that they were having fun together, and really it was more like they were suffering next to each other, it was nice having those familiar faces at his side after months of non-stop pizza.

Pizza. That was the other nice thing about going back to practice. Now that he had to be at practice close to six hours a day, he got to go back down to part-time. The extra money had been really helpful over the summer, and Sam had considered giving up playing football so that he could get as many hours as possible in up until school started, and then after school each day. His parents, though, had been so generous and insisted that he play. They knew he loved it and promised that they would make ends meet. While he appreciated it immensely, he still felt that little pang of guilt that he wasn't doing everything he possibly could for his family, and that maybe he was being selfish for playing a kids' game while his family didn't have enough to eat. He hadn't told Quinn yet, but he was still considering not joining the glee club. It took a lot of time after school, time that he could be making money, and they didn't really need him anyway. They had Finn, they could do without one of their backup singers.

Sam sent up a quick thank you to the Lord above when practice ended before he had the opportunity to pass out or throw up or die. He followed his teammates into the locker room, peeling his sweat-soaked jersey off and tossing it into the laundry bin. He dumped his equipment in a heap in front of his locker, grabbed a towel, and headed for the showers.

Even though it was hot enough outside to fry an egg on his helmet and the steam from the showers was making him dizzy, the scalding water felt good against his skin. It pounded into his tired muscles and sluiced down the creases of his abs, carrying with it sweat and soap bubbles and grime from the field. Sam washed his hair clean and leaned his forehead against the cool tiles, letting the hot water crash down over his shoulders and back for a few more minutes. The showers were crowded with his teammates chattering about football and girls, but Sam didn't notice any of it. That showerhead and the continuous stream of hot water it was providing were the only things he could be bothered to focus on.

When his muscles finally felt loose, Sam turned the tap to close to freezing. He steeled himself against the icy water and stood under it until his skin was turning a bluish white and prickled with goose bumps. It was so hot, and the only way he could keep cool these last few weeks was to get his skin as cold as possible before he went back outside. His icy wet hair could keep him cool for half an hour or longer if he could manage to keep his hands out of it. The motel room didn't have air conditioning, and the five sweating people made for some tight quarters.

He ran the towel through his hair, rubbing it wild, then wrapped it around his waist. When he dressed, packed away his gear, and left the locker room, he was shocked to find the old, beat up pickup parked along the curb. Sometimes if he was dead tired, he hitched a ride home from Puck or Finn, but nine days out of ten, he walked. He never got a ride from his dad. He was always out either looking for work or temping. A sudden fear gripped him. Was something wrong? Were the kids ok? Why was his dad here and not out? Sam tried to calm his step, but his heart was tight in his chest as he yanked open the sticking, rusted door. His dad's face was stern, all hard lines.

"Sam, we need to talk."

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Quinn pressed herself back into the overstuffed booth at the Lunch Box, staring out the window. She sat perfectly still because every time she moved, the hard, red plastic seat squeaked, which seemed to annoy her dad immensely. He sipped his coffee and followed the line of her gaze out into the parking lot. Sitting on the curb smoking cigarettes was a pack of girls Quinn thought she had seen around school. Well, not actually in school, but usually under the bleachers in the football stadium or by the dumpsters out in the parking lot. They called themselves the Skanks, Quinn thought.

They were dressed in blacks and neons, with leggings, skirts, torn cardigans, tattered scarves, bandanas—way more layers than were necessary in the early August heat. Their makeup was so heavy that Quinn could make out the thick black and red lines from yards away, but in a way, it was pretty. It made them look like ghosts, almost, or like the heroines of gothic novels. Their skin glowed an unnatural white, and their cheekbones were painted high and rosy. Their lips were shocking reds and purples, and their eyes were heavily lined and enormous. Each girl's hair was a different shade, but all were unnatural. Fire engine red, neon green, Barbie doll pink, royal blue, and raven black so dark it glinted purple and blue in the light.

The girls laughed as they flicked cigarette ash at each other, and Quinn realized she was staring. Her dad snorted, staring back down at his plate and cutting savagely into his omelet.

"_Clearly_, some people should not be allowed to raise goldfish, let alone children," he said gruffly, chewing as he sliced off another section of egg.

Quinn's eyes turned away from the window slowly, surveying her father warily. He did this all the time.

In his professional opinion, a well-raised boy should be a talented athlete, handsome, confident, God-fearing, and ruthless in his business dealings. A well-raised girl should be beautiful, smart, nurturing, faithful, and confident among her peers but bashful around boys. He scoffed when he saw thin, twelve year old boys with glasses who were hopelessly bad at football or baseball. He spoke of their parents with derision for not raising their sons to be strong men. He disapproved of girls who wore sweatpants, or jeans without heels. Their parents did not impart upon their children the value of femininity. Gays and lesbians were sins against nature, and their parents were the worst failures of them all. The only hope remaining for the children was to send them to intensive Bible study to cure them of their illness.

Sometimes, Quinn thought, her father forgot where he came from. Since their divorce, her mother had opened up on quite a few things about her father that she hadn't known before. She had assumed that her father had always been the epitome of perfection in everything he did. That's what he expected of her and her sister, always. As it turns out, though, he had been a mediocre football player who never had his name in the paper. In high school, he had been a member of the chess club and the debate team. What was even more interesting was the fact that he hadn't been born rich. His dad was a phys ed. teacher and his mom was a part time seamstress, mostly altering gowns for proms and weddings. Her dad had earned a small scholarship to a local college, and had paid for the rest of it himself by working as a line cook near campus. In a sense, this made Quinn respect her father more, because he hadn't been given his perfect life; he earned it.

The funny thing was, now that he was a prominent businessman with more money than he knew what to do with, it was almost as if he wanted to act like that part of his personal history had never happened. His wife, Quinn's mom, had been born into high society, and her dad was determined to be the same. The one thing that Quinn was most proud of him for, he wanted to deny.

Quinn had been sadly mistaken when she thought that, because of his background, her father would relate to and like Sam. Sam was all the things her dad valued in young men—strong, athletic, hardworking, and most of all, protective and gentlemanly towards his daughter. But her dad had this way of telling who had money and who didn't. He said it was in the way people carried themselves. Proud men carried their success in their shoulders. Men who had nothing to be proud of had shoulders that slumped and eyes that constantly sought the ground. And Sam was one of those.

Her father had met Sam once, on one of the lunches he took her to exercise his parental rights. They went out twice a month. It was almost always awkward. At best, it was comfortably quiet. But, Quinn had convinced Sam that it was time to meet her father, despite the fact that her mother had been less than kind to him. Her father did much better. He had been cordial and polite, even asking Sam about school and football and his family. Quinn had almost been sucked into believing the unthinkable, that he actually liked her boyfriend. He had liked Finn, after all. Called him an excellent match. Until the whole pregnancy fiasco, of course.

But when Sam had excused himself to use the restroom, her father had been quick to voice his disapproval. Sam was a nice boy certainly, her father had pointed out. He had clearly learned respect for authority, and for that, his parents should be applauded. But there was a shame in him, a lack of confidence. And how could a boy like that ever be counted on to provide for her? Likely he would turn out to be a fireman or a construction worker or a utility worker for the phone company. Did she really want a husband who spent his days shimmying up telephone poles like a monkey?

Quinn had wanted to ask where the idea of marriage had come up, and what difference it made if Sam ended up working for the phone company. She was only seventeen, and Sam had just turned sixteen. They hadn't even said I love you or done anything more intimate than some heavy petting. She had returned the ring he gave her earlier in the year to him to keep for a time that was more appropriate, and no one had said anything about love or soul mates or forever. They were being good, being responsible, acting their age and just enjoying each other and their time together.

So why did it matter whether someday he would be able to provide for her or not? And provide what? No doubt, her father meant provide the things old Quinn would have wanted and expected—money, a big house, nice clothes, a fancy car, the freedom to work or not as she pleased. But Quinn was changing, and she was sure that someday Sam could provide her with the things she caught herself fantasizing about every once in a while—kisses before work every morning, strong arms to hold her in bed at night, and more smiles than she sometimes knew what to do with.

At the time, Quinn had told her father that she cared very little about his approval of her relationships. Quinn had never been a daddy's girl, but their relationship had been broken beyond repair when he disowned her during her pregnancy with Beth. She could sit there across the table from him in a diner and make small talk, but she would never really forgive him. Now, as she stared at him warily, his eyes full of disdain for the girls in black, she tried to decide if his snide remark deserved a response.

She decided that it didn't. Instead, she speared another chunk of watermelon and allowed her eyes to drift back out the window.

"You know," her father started, measuring his words, slashing at his eggs. "Shelby Corcoran is back in town."

Quinn's eyes shot to her father's, but she held herself perfectly still. If this was a game, it was a cruel one. Her father was not beyond playing cruel games. Mostly, he was blunt. But if manipulation was necessary, he was not above using it. Quinn wasn't sure what she was supposed to say in response, if anything at all.

"It's true," he continued, not bothering to look up from his eggs. "Seems that the Great White Way is no place to try to raise a one-year-old baby. Can you imagine that? Taking a baby to New York City? And trying to work in show business? Might as well be an exotic dancer, really, working late nights away from your child, no secure income and all that. Did you know she's not even married?" He continued to chew in tiny, closed-mouth, circular motions. Polite as always. "She'll actually be living in that condo unit in the neighborhood. Nice little apartments in there. Not that a two bedroom apartment is a great place to raise a child, but who am I to judge."

Quinn might have laughed if she hadn't been so full of a sudden, inexplicable sense of dread. Shelby was back? She was going to be living in Quinn's neighborhood. With Beth. It had been easy to pretend sophomore year and all its mistakes hadn't happened when the living, breathing embodiment of it was far far away. But now she would be right here, right down the street really, and all the emotions would come with her for Quinn to grapple with.

Now that Beth would be back, should Quinn be a mom? Maybe she should visit Beth a few times a week; spend time with her so Shelby could go out and she could bond with her daughter. How would Beth feel when she grew up if she knew her biological mother, her real mother, lived right down the street and never tried to develop a relationship with her? But how could she be a mom? She had given Beth up because she wasn't ready to be a mom. Now Shelby, not Quinn, was Beth's mother. Shelby got to call all the shots; she would make all the decisions. She would decide where to send Beth to school, whether she would be involved in sports or music or dancing. Maybe she would even teach Beth to sing. Shelby was the master vocalist, after all. Much better than Quinn. So really, even if she wanted to be Beth's mom, all Quinn could hope to be is a glorified babysitter.

Quinn breathed deeply and evenly, twisting at the stubby ends of her short hair. Her dad hated when she did tugged at her hair and would always swat her hands away when she was young. She was so glad that tonight was her Saturday night date on the motel porch with Sam. Even though he wasn't working Saturday nights anymore now that he had two-a-day football practices, they decided to keep their tradition alive. It would only be a month until they were back in school, and they wanted to enjoy their hot nights filled with the blinking of lightning bugs and the gentle humming of a solitary swinging light bulb as long as possible. So instead of giving them up altogether, they moved their dates up to 10 o'clock and showed up for church Sunday morning with fresh, bright eyes.

Quinn folded her napkin and set it politely over her plate. She gave her father a curt smile. Only a few more minutes with him. And then only a few more hours until she could see Sam. Sam would know how to make her feel better. He always did.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

**So I'm going to go self-flagellate in a corner for taking an impossible amount of time to get this out. But, I do promise that the story will get finished. Even if it takes me forever to get a chapter out, I haven't forgotten about it. Please enjoy the chapter, review, and don't skip past the author's note at the end. It's important!**

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"Quinn?" Sam asked meekly.

Fifteen minutes had passed, and still he waited. He had tried her name multiple times in those fifteen minutes—gently, harshly, commanding, pleading—but nothing had gotten through to her. Quinn just stared out into the blackness of the night, not looking at him, not touching him, not speaking to him. This wasn't how he had expected it to happen. But then again, all of this was so completely unexpected, that he really shouldn't have tried to figure out what any of it would be like from here on out. Why it was shocking, he had no clue. It should have been clear as day.

When he got into the car, his father's face had been stern. Sam felt a clenching in his stomach and the cold fear of anxiety. When he was six, just before Stevie was born, he had a dog named Ranger. He was a big, thick boned yellow lab, so muscular that when Sam was a little smaller, he could wrap his arms around Ranger's neck and ride him around the yard. One day, Ranger got clipped by a passing car and got sick, so sick that he had to go to the pet doctor. Sam had felt the same way then. The knot in his stomach, the cold tingling in his hands. That awful sense of waiting for an answer that he knew was coming but didn't want to hear.

Sam pressed his palms flat against the pickup truck's seat, pushing hard to peel the backs of his thighs from the sticky, sweltering plastic. The seat was so hot it looked like an overripe melon about to burst. The seams actually seemed to be sweating. It burned his skin.

"Sam, I got a job," his dad stated, without indulgence or formality. He had been looking straight out over the dash when he announced it, his hands gripping the steering wheel at exactly 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock. Now, he allowed his face to turn so he was looking directly at his son in the passenger side, gauging his reaction.

Sam's eyes widened, and the corners of his lips began to twitch upward. That wasn't what he was expecting at all by the look on his dad's face. His dad looked like he was about to deliver the news that someone in his family died, but a job? A full time, real job that paid real money? No freakin way. Would that mean that they would be able to move out of the motel room? He understood why they had to be there, and he didn't blame his parents. They were doing their best. But it would be so nice to sleep in a bed—any kind of bed—rather than on a stack of folded sweatshirts on the floor. Maybe he shouldn't get so excited yet. Maybe they would have to stay in the motel a while longer to save money. Maybe he could get some new jeans though? The two pairs he had left had more holes than swiss cheese. He knew he shouldn't, but Sam couldn't stop the grin from spreading across his face.

"Sam." The tone of his father's voice froze the smile in place and began to tug it downwards. "The job's in Kentucky."

Kentucky? That would be like pretty far away right? His smile quickly faded into a contemplative frown. His family had never been apart before. Back in Tennessee, everyone knew them as the perfect family. The strong father, the gentle mother, the charismatic older son, the energetic little boy, the beautiful little girl. The five blondes that held hands at church and said their prayers together at night. The family that went to football games and school plays and cheered each other on. The ones that never tired of each other. They were even making it through poverty together. But if his dad was going to Kentucky to work, what would that mean for the rest of them, for their family? Would they stay in the motel room while his dad worked and sent money back to them? Would he come home on the weekends? Was he supposed to be the man of the house now that his dad would be away? Oh God.

"We move in three days."

Move? Sam blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of it all. Move.

"Move?" he found the courage to ask his dad.

"Yes, to Kentucky. That's where I found work, Sam."

Duh. Duh, duh, duh. Of course they were moving. He found a job. In Kentucky. And they were moving. Again. And he would be the new kid. Again. This would be his third high school in three years. Sam had gotten pretty good at playing the cool kid. He knew he was pretty good looking, he smiled a lot, he talked sports with the guys, suppressed his inner geek. He was good at playing cool, but not great. The kids at McKinley had started to catch on to him. He learned fast that his impressions weren't cool, and that no one liked Avatar quite as much as he did, so if he was going to be popular and have lots of friends, he needed to try to keep those things under wraps. It just so happened that, at McKinley, he found a group of friends who were just as weird as he was.

Even the popular kids here were pretty cool with the person he was naturally. Sure, Dave Karofsky had punched him in the face, and Santana hadn't deemed him popular enough to be her ticket to prom royalty. But even when she hissed mouth jokes at him, he could tell she did it because she liked him and she knew he could take it. And Quinn. The most beautiful, smartest, most popular girl in school had somehow fallen for him, not once, but twice, and now he would be leaving it all to start over again in a place where no one knew him. He couldn't even think about Quinn, or he knew his dad would see him cry, and he couldn't let that happen. His dad was trying so hard to make things better, and Sam didn't want to ruin that for him by making him feel guilty or think that he made his kids unhappy.

He pushed the biggest smile he could manage onto his face, though he knew it was quivering around the edges, and tried to cheer up.

"That's so awesome dad!" he tried not to let the impending sob choke his voice. "Did you get an engineering job?"

"No," his dad answered, eyeing his son warily. No doubt he was skeptical of Sam's cheerful reaction. "It's only managing a construction site, and it's an hourly wage, not a salary, but still, it's at least secure until the job's done, and it pays well enough that we'll be able to rent a little two bedroom ranch. When your mom and I were down there suring up the job, we found a place we could stay, so we'll only have to stay in a motel in Kentucky for a week or so before our lease starts. It's a really nice place, Sam," he said, his voice starting to dip, and a hint of shame creeping into his voice. "You'll need to share a bed with Stevie, but it won't be so bad, compared to living here. It'll be just like when we were home. Remember? You loved sharing a room with Stevie in Tennessee."

"Yeah dad," Sam answered, finding a more genuine smile to ease his father's mind. He did like sharing things with his kid brother. "It'll be great."

He would be the new kid again, but he supposed he could make it work somehow if it meant that his family could get back on their feet and be happy again. He couldn't stand to see the kids hungry anymore than he could stand to see his parents looking guilty and dejected. He could make it work; he had to. He would just have to smile more and talk less and fluff everyone's egos by telling them how great they were all the time. He would have to forget about music and comics and the movies he liked for a while, and he'd have to watch himself extra hard so that he remembered not to speak Na'vi or do impressions in public anymore. Those things made him super uncool, even if they were the things he loved, and making new friends was the most important thing in the world to him.

_New_ friends. That meant that Finn and Puck and Mike and Mercedes and Santana and Brittany were his _old_ friends. That meant Quinn was his old friend. He didn't need to count the number of times he had seen his _old_ friends in Tennessee, because he knew that number off the top of his head. Zero. He hadn't been back to Tennessee even once since he moved almost exactly a year ago. When he had regular access to a computer, he would sometimes pass messages back and forth with his best friends Joey and Jocelyn on Facebook. But now that he was never at a computer, even that was gone. And these were the people he had grown up with. The twins were Sam's next door neighbors since he could remember. Joey had caught his first pass in a high school football game, and he and Jos had been each other's first kiss, even though all it had been was a giggling, close-lipped peck when they were ten. If he didn't even talk to his best friends anymore, the people who he spent fourteen years growing up with, how quickly would the people he had known for only one year forget him? How quickly would Quinn forget?

Back at the motel room, there wasn't much packing that needed to be done. He hadn't really noticed that his mom had been quietly tidying and reorganizing in the last few days, but then again, they had so few possessions that it made no difference if they were packed away in cardboard boxes or scattered across the room. His mom had apparently told the kids, and they were hopping around with excitement. At eight and ten, everything was a new adventure to them, even the year in the motel. They made new friends about as often as they changed clothes, and they didn't understand yet that kids could be cruel, and that it was hard being the outsider. It was all for the better that they didn't have to deal with these things, though, and Sam tried to let their cheerfulness brighten his mood.

It almost worked, until it was time for Quinn to come over for their date on the porch. Their _last_ date on the porch, Sam reflected. He didn't really have the time to reflect on what this meant for their growing relationship, and it probably wouldn't really sink in until he was long gone. He had a lot of goodbyes to say in the next couple days. He hoped it wouldn't be goodbye forever, but he knew better.

Ten minutes before Quinn was scheduled to show up, Sam carried himself out to the porch and plopped down on the cracked, greying wood. In the last few hours, his body had somehow become unbearably heavy. His knees felt sore, his ankles felt weak, and his shoulders tightened in a way that made it hard for him to keep his chin raised off his chest. He was tired, too, he noticed. The long days of football practices had been fun, and the adrenaline of competing for a spot and building to win a state title had kept him going at an unsustainable pace. But now that he had been torn down from that exciting high, he felt all the wear and tear on his body, all the fatigue. With a heaving sigh, Sam eased himself onto his back, bent knees hanging off the end of the porch onto the steps. This wasn't going to be easy.

The last light of dusk was fading to a yellowish grey over the smokestacks of Northwest Ohio when Quinn pulled up. Sam heard the thud of her car door slamming and the beep of her keys, and pressed his chin to his chest to watch over his knees as she kicked up dust across the gravel lot. She looked like a breath of fresh air in her dress of stiff white lace, and if he closed his eyes, he could just make out the lilac of her perfume on the late summer breeze. He smiled up at her lazily, and for a moment suspended in time, with her hazel brown eyes looking down at him, twinkling with the sparks of fireflies, everything was all right.

But then Quinn sat down stiffly, tucking her skirt under her. She held her shoulders back and her back perfectly straight. Sam patted the swath of wood beside him, beckoning her to lay down with him and watch as the stars emerged from within the blanket of night.

"No," she refused curtly. "My dress will get dirty from this disgusting wood. Do you know how many alcoholics have spilled beers here?"

That's when Sam knew something was wrong. As a matter of fact, he did know how many alcoholics had spilled beers there. There were nights when his mom and dad had stayed out, sleeping over night in the car in some distant town while looking for work, that Sam had held Stacy in his arms, trying to soothe her back to sleep while a drunk wailed outside their door. But the Quinn he had been getting to know for the past few months didn't say things like that. And the Quinn he had been getting to know didn't worry about her dress getting a little dusty.

"Is something wrong Quinn?" he asked gently.

"No."

It wasn't quite a snap, but it was definitely abrupt. Something wasn't right, and all of the sudden, Sam felt like he was back at the airport, back in the garden at the funeral home, trying to navigate a viper pit while a silent, brooding rage lurked just beneath Quinn's pretty blonde surface.

"Are you sure? Did I do something? Because there's something really important we need to talk about, and I don't wanna go there yet if you're mad at me."

He sat up as Quinn turned to glare at him, but the anger in her eyes quickly melted away. She sighed, and her body visibly softened as she leaned into his side, resting her head against his shoulder.

"No, it's ok," she offered, nuzzling her nose into his t-shirt. He would miss that about her—how she made him feel strong even when he was weak. "I've just had a rough day. What is it you wanted to talk about?"

Sam looked down at the pretty blonde head resting on his shoulder and sighed. All gone. For as perfect as Quinn tried to be, it was the imperfections Sam liked most about her. The way, when she leaned her head like that, short strands of hair, chopped unevenly, hung across her eyes. Eyes that weren't quite green, but weren't quite brown. He even liked the way little dried dots of black mascara dusted her cheeks when she closed her eyes. Would she cry when she found out he'd be leaving? Sam pulled in a deep breath, closed his eyes, leaned his lips into her hair, and told her everything.

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Twenty minutes after he told her he was leaving, Sam gave up on waiting for Quinn to say anything at all. He would have walked her back to her car, but she was sitting so still, so silent, and so stiff, that Sam was pretty sure he'd be losing a hand if he tried to touch her. Immediately after the words tumbled numbly from his lips, Quinn froze against his side. She sat up rigidly, shoving his hip hard to push herself up. At that point, he was expecting rage, but he didn't get it. Quinn didn't so much as look at him, didn't even turn her eyes in his general direction. Instead, she stared blankly out into the night, not tipping her hand, not even giving the beginning of a hint as to what she was thinking. He had tried calling her name, but nothing worked, so he just sat beside her in the heavy silence she seemed to be relishing.

"Beth's back in town," Quinn said in a voice so quiet it could barely be separated from the humming of the street lamp.

Sam was dumbstruck. Why would Quinn's daughter be here in Lima? As far as he knew, someone adopted her and took her far away. They didn't like, return adopted babies did they? Another moment of silence passed between them.

"Beth?"

He knew it was a mistake as soon as it slipped out of his mouth. He cringed back, waiting for the axe to fall.

"My _daughter_, Sam," Quinn stated. The ice in her voice was enough to freeze breath and chill bones in the hot night air.

Sam bit his lip. That was bad. Bad bad. He obviously knew Quinn had a daughter named Beth, though in truth she rarely talked about her. He knew it hurt her a lot to think about Beth, so he never really brought it up, even though there had always been a million questions swirling through his head. Having turned sixteen a few months back, Sam wasn't sure if he was late to the party for still being a virgin. He knew that sex was gonna be awesome, and that it was something he wanted desperately, but he was still a little shocked and in awe of the fact that it produced life. Sam shook the thought from his head, focusing on what was immediately in front of him, on what was important.

"I wish I could be here to help you Quinn," Sam said, genuinely sorry. He reached out to lay his hand over one of hers, which she had folded neatly in her lap. It was cold to the touch. "I wish a million things that I can't change."

"_Don't_," she pushed his hand away, seething. "I'll do it myself, _obviously_. Just like I always do."

Sam winced, and Quinn launched herself from the porch step, crossing the parking lot in long, angry strides. He wanted more than anything to race after her, to put his arms around her waist and tell her everything was going to be ok, to comfort her and talk to her through the night. But it wasn't going to be ok. So instead, he watched her car kick up dust as it backed out of the lot, and lowered his head into his hands.

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**Ok, so I know I'm a perv (and you probably are too for being here!), but it's about to get raunchy. Not the next chapter, but in a few. I need audience participation. When I first started thinking about this story, I never imagined in a million years that these idiots would even **_**imply**_** that a sixteen-year-old kid lost his virginity in a strip club. But there we have it, that's what they give us. Soooo, how would you, my lovely readers, like for this to go down? Does he lose it turning tricks in a strip club? Does he meet some other girl in Kentucky? Or does he save it for Quinn? This isn't a democracy, so I won't be tallying votes to decide, but your preference with a couple reasons will be well heeded. Oh, and don't worry, I do know what's going on with the story in general, so no need to worry that I'm just heading out into the abyss. Thanks!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10 **

**Look who updated within a week! Woohoo! Go me! I just want you all to know that since I am a serious author and am dedicated to the factual accuracy of my work, I felt that it was my duty to see Magic Mike so that I could write a truthful, hard hitting portrayal of life as a male stripper. It was grueling work, but I feel like putting the time into my research will really show in my writing. So ya'll can thank me for my hard work, I did this for you ;)**

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Stevie was being a monster.

He and Stacy had both been so excited the last couple days. They had helped their mother pack their clothing and what few toys they had left into cardboard boxes, bubbling over the entire time with questions about what Kentucky would be like, where they would go to school, what their new house looked like, and what Daddy would be doing for work. Stacy was just as enthusiastic as she had been three days ago when they first got the news. But in the last twenty-four hours, Stevie had grown cold and sullen, giving one word answers whenever he was asked a question and refusing to meet anyone's eyes.

And then there was today's episode.

Sam and his father had tugged the last of the bungee cords tight over the pickup's bed, securing their boxes in place for the four hour ride ahead of them. There wasn't enough room in the cabin of the pickup for all of them to sit comfortably, but they had no other option, so Stacy would sit on their mom's lap on the middle of the bench, and Stevie would sit on Sam's. Sam had just pulled the seatbelt across his mother and sister's waists and buckled them in when Stevie started to fidget and panic, tugging at Sam's sleeve for attention.

"What's up buddy?" Sam asked, seeing the nervousness playing in his brother's face.

"I forgot my favorite pair of socks, and now I can't find them!" he whined, his voice nearing a sob.

"Your favorite socks?"

As far as Sam could recall, they all had the same socks. White, bargain-brand cotton socks that came in packs of six. He didn't remember Stevie having a special pair, but his kid brother was insistent.

"We can get you a new pair of socks in Kentucky when we get there, ok?"

"Nooooo!" Stevie wailed, "Please Sammy, you have to help me look! They were my favorite!"

Sam's brow furrowed and he bit the corner of his lip. It didn't seem like Stevie was going to let this go, and the last thing he wanted was his ten-year-old brother sitting on his lap for four hours if he was going to be miserable for the whole ride. His dad was hopping up behind the wheel, and although he was wearing a brave, smiling face, Sam knew he was anxious to get on the road and have this whole thing over with. Sam stuffed his hands in his pockets.

"Dad, Stevie forgot something in the room, I'm just gonna go help him look for it. We'll be back in a second. Is that ok?"

The lines around his dad's mouth tightened a bit, but he nodded. "Sure, go ahead. Just hurry up, ok?"

Sam nodded quickly and put a hand on Stevie's shoulder, leading him back into the motel.

The motel room where Sam and his family had lived for seven months had become something like a home to him, but now, without their clothes hanging over the backs of chairs and doors, without a pot of rice cooking on the hot plate, and without the smell of baby shampoo coming from the bathroom, the room looked like exactly what it was—a cheap, dirty hole for drunks, hookers, and the homeless. He wouldn't miss this place, but at the same time, he didn't want to forget his year in Ohio. He could always run through the "what ifs" and be bitter that his parents made them leave Tennessee in the first place, but the truth was, if they hadn't moved, he would have never met so many wonderful friends.

There wasn't exactly a lot of space in the room to lose a pair of socks, and Sam didn't see them laying anywhere on the floor, so he got down on his hands and knees to search under the bed while Stevie rooted around in the empty closet. He thought he saw a lumpy shape under the bed, but when he stretched his fingers, he couldn't quite reach it. Laying down on his stomach, he pressed himself flat and wriggled until his shoulders slid under the bed frame.

"I think I may have found your socks kiddo," Sam called, but he didn't hear a response from Stevie. The kid was probably in the bathroom searching for his damn socks in the toilet.

He stretched himself a bit further, and when he reached as far as he could, he could just about brush fabric with his fingertips. Every time he inhaled, his lungs filled with thick dust, and he was sure the front of his shirt and his jeans were covered in the same substance. His mom would be seriously pissed, and all for these socks. They better be a pair of awesome Superman socks or something, Sam thought irritably.

Shoving his hand out an inch further, his fingers closed around the ball of cotton, and he struggled to free himself from the bed frame pressed tight across his shoulder blades. When he finally army crawled his way back out from beneath the bed, he raised up onto his hands and knees and pushed himself off the floor. When he looked down, his entire chest was covered in a layer of gray grime.

Dusting himself off, he looked around for his kid brother.

"Stevie?" he called, sticking his head through the open bathroom door. No one there. He tried the closet, but Stevie wasn't there either. The motel room may have been big enough to lose a pair of socks, but it definitely wasn't big enough to lose a ten-year-old kid.

Sam walked to the door and glanced out to where the truck was parked with the rest of his family in it. His dad was still behind the wheel, chatting to his mom and sister who were still buckled in where he left them, but Stevie wasn't with them. Sam felt the panic rising in his chest. Where could he have possibly gotten to in a couple minutes? He scanned the parking lot and the two-way highway it let out onto, but there was no trace of his brother. Sam finally thought to open his hand and look at this damn pair of socks that was causing so much grief.

In his hand were a gross pair of panties that were most _definitely_ not his mom's or his sister's, and down the street about five blocks, a blond flash was sprinting away at top speed.

Sam's heart caught in his throat. He dropped the panties onto the gravel parking lot and took off after his brother. He sprinted as hard as he could, his arms and legs pumping harder out of a sense of desperation than they ever could on a football field. He chased Stevie around corners and around trees, gaining a few steps every time Stevie slowed or caught his foot on a root growing out from the cracking sidewalk. By the time Stevie reached the park where Sam often took them to play after school, his brother, with much longer legs and a running back's speed, had caught up to him.

When Sam was within a step of him, he threw an arm out and caught Stevie around the waist. He wrapped both arms around him and held him tight as he fought to escape. Both of them were panting hard, but Stevie was like a wild animal, kicking out in all directions and flailing with his arms.

"What are you doing?" Sam shouted at him.

"Let me go! Let me go!" Stevie wailed, kicking back and clipping Sam in the shins a few times.

"Stop it Stevie! What the hell?"

When the burst of demonic energy possessing his brother finally dwindled, Sam set him back down on his feet and spun him to face him, gripping him tightly by the upper arms.

"What are you doing? Why the hell would you do that?" Sam shouted, trying not to shake his brother. "I thought someone kidnapped you while I was looking for your stupid socks!"

"I don't wanna go!" Stevie wailed, his face reddening and the tears welling in his eyes.

"What are you talking about? We have to go Stevie."

"Well I don't wanna! I'm tired of moving, I'm tired of new schools and stupid new kids. I wanna stay here. I don't wanna go!"

By now, he was crying so hard that his face was bright red and starved for air, and he was choking and hiccupping on snot. He was kicking at Sam's shins again and slamming tiny fists against his chest, but at least he wasn't trying to escape.

"Stevie, stop it! We have to move. Dad got a new job. You don't wanna be homeless still do you? Don't kids make fun of you like they made fun of me? Mom and Dad are trying really hard to make things better for us, Stevie, don't you see that? Stop making it so hard for them. Stop being such a baby!"

Stevie whimpered and tried to catch his breath through his sobs. Through the entire fit, his eyes had been pressed shut with tears, but he managed to open them now. They were blue-green like Sam's and wide with childish fear. His tears made him look even younger than ten, and Sam knew he couldn't stay mad at him much longer.

Softening, he lowered himself to one knee in front of his brother so that their eyes were on the same level.

"Stevie, look, I know it sucks. I'm really sad we're leaving too. And I know it's really hard making new friends all the time, but you're popular right? Everybody likes you?"

Stevie sniffled and nodded.

"So really it'll just be a cool new experience. Everybody in Kentucky will like you just like they liked you here and just like they did in Tennessee. When you're cute like us, making friends is super easy," Sam grinned, wishing he believed everything he was telling his brother.

"And you heard Mom and Dad. We get to live in a cool house and you and me are gonna share a room again. Isn't that gonna be awesome?"

He ruffled Stevie's hair, and that brought a little smile to his face.

"It'll be ok kiddo, we'll look out for each other, ok? I'm sorry I yelled at you."

"S'ok Sammy," Stevie sniffed, using his fists to dry his eyes.

Sam hugged him then stood back up, taking him by the hand and leading him back towards the motel. When they finally got back, his dad was out of the car, his hands on his hips, pacing a few steps alongside the truck. He looked up when he saw his sons, and Sam could tell that he was irritated. But when he saw Stevie's red eyes and tear stained face, his anger immediately turned into concern.

"Is he ok?" he asked Sam. "What's wrong?"

Sam nodded silently, and his dad caught the hint, letting his question drop unanswered.

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Just as he was packing Stevie into the cabin of the truck, a familiar silver Honda sped into the lot and roared to a halt on the gravel. The driver's door flew open, and Quinn shot out, her choppy blonde hair flying in all directions, sticking to her lip gloss. Her cheeks were flushed a deep crimson, and one of the straps of her sundress was slipping down over her shoulder. Sam's eyes shot to his father, sheepish.

"Dad," he paused, looking down, "Can I?"

"Of course son, go ahead," he said, without a hint of annoyance this time.

Sam squeezed himself from the overcrowded truck, almost tripping himself on the running board. He wanted to run into Quinn's arms, to scoop her up, to kiss her and never let her go, but the last time he had spoken to her was a few nights ago on the porch, when she had stalked off like she never wanted to see him again. He was actually shocked that she was standing here right now. He approached her cautiously, hoping that she hadn't come back to curse him out some more. When he reached her, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and studied his feet, rolling a few pieces of gravel around in the dust.

"You came," he muttered.

"Yeah," she answered, breathing in deeply through her nose, trying to calm her pounding heart. "I didn't think I was gonna make it over here before you left."

"I didn't think you wanted to see me," he said, trying to keep his voice strong so that she wouldn't hear the whimper threatening to break through.

"Yeah, Sam, about that," Quinn started, looking down, examining her nails and pressing at a broken cuticle. She was searching, struggling. "I, I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry. I should have never lashed out at you like that. It's not your fault. None of it is. I just, I don't know, it's all this stuff with Beth, and I thought . . . " She paused to stare up through her eyelashes, either searching for God or willing the tears not to form, Sam couldn't tell. "It's just, I mean, you're so good with Stevie and Stacy . . . you're so great with kids, ya know? I just thought, like, maybe you and me could spend some time with Beth, ya know? Now that she's home and all. I don't know, Sam, I'm sorry, I just thought we could really do this thing together."

Sam tried to picture it. From the picture Quinn showed him of Beth, her baby was as perfect as she was. Everything would be just like it was now, except maybe every other week on a Saturday, Quinn would get to see her daughter. The two of them could push Beth around the park in her stroller, or maybe even put those little orange floaties on her arms and a floppy hat on her head and wade her through the shallow end of Quinn's pool. Sam was in no position to raise a kid, but he knew all about changing diapers and feeding them mushy carrots and playing peek-a-boo. He didn't have a powerhouse voice like Mercedes or Rachel, but he had found over the years that his voice was perfect for lulling babies to sleep. And he actually enjoyed them. He might have liked helping Quinn with her baby. It might have been really nice and brought him and Quinn that much closer, but it wasn't meant to be.

"That would have been nice Quinn," he said softly, the regret clear in his voice as he let his hands run along the length of smooth skin from her shoulders to her elbows. He could apologize. He could offer to help her with Beth when he came back to visit. But it wouldn't matter. Their lives would be different from here on out.

"Quinn, um, you're not . . . You're not my girlfriend anymore, are you," it wasn't really a question, because Sam knew the answer. It was a stupid question anyway. How could they possibly make it work? How could they stay a couple when they would live four hours apart and there was no hope of ever being in the same place again? He didn't have a computer to Skype her. He didn't even have a cell phone to call her. No, it was impossible.

"Oh, Sam." Quinn looked sad. Sad like she was being forced to do something that was too heavy a load for her to bear. Sympathetic was the right word. Sad like she was being forced to break his heart. "Sam, you know we can't. How could we?"

"I know. Honest, Quinn, I know. I just wanted to hear it from you. I wanted to know for sure that this is how you wanted it to be."

"Sam, I don't _want_ it to be like this. You _know_ I don't. We just, we can't."

"I know."

A long silence passed between them. Sam's eyes darted up from the ground to finally meet Quinn's, and there was a desperation in them like he had never felt before.

"Quinn, I, I should tell you . . . Quinn, I think I—"

"Please don't," she cut him off, "Please? It'll just make it worse."

"Ok." He lowered his eyes. "You'll call sometimes?"

"Of course I'll call."

Sam nodded slowly, looking away to try to hide the pain in his eyes. It hurt. It hurt a lot. But he was glad she came. He was glad it was going to be over like this, with a kiss and a conversation, rather than with her hating him for something he couldn't control. He leaned down to wrap both arms around her waist and pull her close. Quinn's face settled into his chest, and he nestled his down into her hair. He inhaled deeply. She smelled like honey and fresh cream and summer. When she pulled back to look up at him, he could see that a few tears were brimming on her lashes.

Quinn's fingers snaked up his spine and tangled in the short blond fuzz at the nape of his neck. He looked down at her, and their eyes locked, her moist cherry lips parting slightly to capture a breath. Sam leaned down and closed his eyes, touching his lips to hers ever so gently. Quinn raised herself onto her toes and pressed up into him. Her lower lip slid between his and he savored it, sucking it slowly and running his tongue along the stretch of tender flesh. He could feel her tongue sliding against his, entering his mouth, and he could feel the small buds of her nipples stiffening against his chest. If things were different, he would lift her into his arms, her cotton panties rubbing against denim jeans as she wrapped her legs around his waist. He would lower her onto her back on the veranda where they had spent so many nights kissing and cuddling, sharing secrets and reconnecting. And he would make love to her at the stroke of midnight, with the light of the stars and the fireflies twinkling in their eyes.

But things weren't different, so he pulled back, breaking their kiss before any of those thoughts could sink in, and helped her into her car.

Minutes later, after Quinn had left and he and his family had set off on the road to their new home, with his little brother buckled to his lap and his mom and sister at his side, sleep was the only thing that could save Sam from heartbreak.

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Sam had been dozing on and off for the majority of the trip, his forehead pressed against the steaming glass while the highway breeze rushed through the open window overhead. It wasn't a deep sleep, and he could still vaguely hear the conversations going on around him, although he wasn't coherent enough to make sense of any of them. He woke up when they made pit stops for bathroom breaks and when they stopped to eat the sandwiches his mom had packed from home. Home. Sam pondered at the fact that he was now referring to a motel room as home and wondered how long that would last once they were in Kentucky.

He had picked at the sandwich, which was really just two slices of white bread and a slice of ham, and wondered if maybe they would be able to eat a little bit better once his dad had a job. He wasn't complaining—really he was just glad that most nights they had food at all—but being hungry was the hardest part. And seeing his brother and sister hungry. He was old enough that he could press his lips tightly shut and ignore the pangs in his stomach. But his brother and sister were just kids, and their response was to complain loudly whenever it hurt. They didn't quite understand that they weren't being punished, that there just wasn't food to give them. So whenever they complained, Sam always quietly gave them whatever he had for himself, rather than see his mom cry, which hurt way worse than his empty stomach.

Sam had always been the picky eater and the health food nut, snubbing his nose when Finn scarfed down three sloppy joes for lunch every day in the school cafeteria. But towards the end, Sam would inhale food wherever and whenever he could find it. At Nationals, he had eaten a bag of Doritos so fast that he had barely tasted them. Finn had poked him in the stomach and jokingly asked him if he was gonna have to fast for a few days or run an extra mile to make up for it. Only when Rachel gave him the death glare did Finn realize what was happening. After that, he apologized profusely and kept trying to sneakily buy him food whenever they were out. Except Finn couldn't do anything sneakily, and Sam had been embarrassed and hurt.

Things were better when he was working at the pizza joint. Most nights, he could steal home a box or a half box of that night's stale leftovers. The owner had caught him one night but had been gracious. "Go ahead, Sam," he had said, noticing the gauntness in his face, "Better than it going to waste." The pizza wasn't nearly enough, but it was more than they had, and for that he was forever grateful to his boss.

With Ohio and the rest of his life there three hours behind them, Sam was beginning to look forward to the good things waiting for him in Kentucky. Food, for one. He would definitely be looking forward to eating something other than a slice or two of cold, congealed pizza every day. And they would have a house to live in. That would be cool. His parents kept warning them that it was small, so he figured there was going to be a lot of tripping over each other's toes, but it couldn't possibly be worse than the motel. And he would have a bedroom again! Sure, he had to share it, and the queen size bed it came with, with his kid brother, but that wasn't so bad. Stevie didn't take up that much space, and he didn't snore or anything. Any expectation Sam had had of personal space had gone out the window months ago when four people got stuffed in the same bed and he was about six feet away on the floor. He tried to keep those thoughts in mind, the thoughts of the good things, and use them to block out all the worry about the bad things. Like being the new kid at school. Again.

His mom nudged him from his half sleep when they were nearing the town they'd be moving to. Georgetown, the signs said. Sam moved his chin to his brother's shoulder to glance over him at the pickup's clock. It only took four hours, and they had stopped a couple times to use the bathroom and to eat. So really more like three and a half hours, or three twenty if you were moving pretty good. _I could see Quinn a couple weekends, really, it doesn't take long to get there . . . _

Sam forced himself to stop. This was his new life now.

"We'll be living out in the sticks a bit next week when we get to move into the house," his dad explained, "But for now, until the lease starts, we're just gonna stay at a motel right in town, ok guys? It'll give us all a good chance to get used to the city."

They all nodded, eyes scanning their new surroundings. It wasn't much of a city, truth be told. They were weaving the pickup down a grimy strip, double parked and festering with people sweating in the summer heat. Supposedly Georgetown had a quaint, historic Main Street, his dad told them, but this wasn't it. They were on an outer ring of town, commercial, with more cars than pedestrians. It was clear people didn't stay here long. There were a couple fast food joints, some car dealerships, a ton of cheap motels, and a strip joint with flashing XXX signs in the blackened windows. This was clearly the kind of place people came to get what they needed and left.

When they pulled into the motel, his mom and brother and sister bounced out of the car and started unloading the boxes from the bed of the truck. Most of them would stay packed, but his dad thought it unwise to leave their few earthly possessions out in the open in a motel parking lot. When Sam went to grab a box, his dad touched his elbow and held him back.

"Sam," he started, running a hand through his greying blond hair, "I was hoping I could ask you for a favor buddy."

Sam's brows creased. His dad had that guilty look. That guilty look that Sam hated, like he was asking him to do something he hated.

"Sure dad, what's up?"

"Sam, I, I know we just got out of the bad times, and everything is gonna be better, I promise. It would just . . ." he let out a long, heavy sigh, "It would help out so much if you still worked. My job is gonna pay the rent, I promise, you don't have to worry this time that we'll be losing a home. And you won't be hungry, Sam, I swear it. But there just won't be money left for anything else. Bills and anything extra we might need, things like that. I'm so sorry, Sam, it hurts me so much to ask you. I know you kept us of the streets. Please don't think I didn't notice that."

"Dad, it's totally ok. Honest. Everybody my age works anyway," he lied, smiling. "I thought I saw a couple fast food joints on this street, I'm sure they'll take me. So, um, how many hours do you need me to work? If I go right after school I can get like 35 hours a week in. I . . . I can go to school . . . right?"

"Oh, no, no. Of course I want you to go to school. It's not gonna be like that. I want you to play football, buddy, or sing, or do whatever makes you happy. You need to do some things for yourself. Maybe three or four hours a night? Does that sound ok?"

"Yeah dad, no problem. I'll start looking first thing tomorrow."


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

**I'm sorry! Next chapter will come quicker. Within the week is the goal! Please read and review.**

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Shoulders drove into thighs, arms wrapped around knees, and a helmet struck the ground with a satisfying crunch. When Sam pushed himself up off the rag doll body beneath him, a pair of dark brown eyes stared up at him, shimmering with rage. He stood up and swung his leg over the boy's shoulders, stalking off back to the line. Behind him, the kid was hoisting himself up to his knees, then his feet, grunting and a step slower than the last time. Sam didn't bother to turn around to face him; he could feel the anger boiling in waves at his back. He weaved through the defensive line and set up behind them.

He would let the quarterback go this time and drop back to cover the short game. The kid had already been on his back five times in the last half an hour. He earned himself a break.

The kid was Bobby Donahue. Senior quarterback of the Scott County Cardinals. Bobby Donahue wasn't all that great a quarterback, but he had been waiting three long years for that spot. Three long years to be the most worshipped guy in town. The guy all the girls wanted on their arm. The guy all the teachers let slide. The guy all the men in town talked about on Saturday mornings, reliving their own days in the red and blue.

Sam understood how this guy felt. He'd wanted all those things too. Being the new kid in town always meant that he was searching for acceptance. And did everything he could to get it. That's really how everything started with Quinn. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen in his life besides his mom and his sister, and he never felt like he was purposefully using her for her popularity, but there was a bit of that mixed in. He saw the way everyone looked at Quinn Fabray when she strutted down the hallways, the pleats in her Cheerios skirt swishing as she walked. The boys wanted her, but wouldn't even dare to look her way. They knew she was too good for them. The girls either hated her or worshipped her. Hated her for being what they couldn't, or worshipped for being the shining example of what they hoped to someday be. Sam didn't need all that. Just a little piece. Some friends who treated him like he belonged. A girl who thought he was cute. Teammates who respected him.

So when Bobby Donahue all but growled at him as he lined up under center, Sam understood that the guy was on the cusp of high school god status, and would kill anything standing in his way to reach it, including him.

Sam wasn't sure if he was getting older and wiser, or if he was just jaded, but he wasn't nearly as timid on his first day of football practice at Scott County as he was at McKinley. Then, he had been desperate to impress and terrified of disappointing, anxious to earn a spot on the team that would pave the way to popularity and acceptance. Now, he was here because he loved to play football, and he was damn good at it. That, and sometimes it just felt good to feel your shoulder pads crack against some guy's ribs and hear the wind as it whooshed out of him.

They had made good time to Kentucky early Tuesday afternoon, and by Wednesday morning, Sam was enrolled at Scott County High. He showed up at football practice late afternoon on Wednesday in gym shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt while the rest of the guys were already in full gear. It was late in the practice season, almost definitely coming up on their first scrimmages, so everything from here on out would be full pads, full contact, Sam knew. That's what they had been working towards at McKinley when he left.

He knew the deal by now. Approach the head coach when the guys were on water break. Don't interrupt while he's busy or has a whistle in his mouth. Try to wait until he's not barking at someone. Don't be upset or offended if he barks at you. Don't give up if he acts like he doesn't have time for you. Expect immediate rejection. Be diligent but polite. Ask for a tryout, even just a few minutes on the field. Just a few minutes to show what he could do. And hopefully, his talent would speak for itself. That's what his dad always said about bragging. No need to tell everyone how good you are. Your game on the field will tell them how good you are.

Coach Woods was pretty much just like the last three football coaches he had. Well, except Beiste, but only because she was a woman; she was just like the rest in every other conceivable way. Woods was on the field in the blistering sun in a baseball cap and a grey t-shirt soaked through with dark sweat. He had a thick southern accent that he was using at the top of his lungs to insult his players, but it must have been particular to the region or to Kentucky, because Sam had never heard one quite like that before. Sure enough, he had a whistle hanging around his neck, and when his quarterback undershot his receiver by about six yards for the third time in a row, he blew it to send them to the line for wind sprints.

The guy was probably pissed, and it was generally against Sam's rule to talk to a coach when he was pissed, but it didn't seem like he was going to get a better opportunity anytime soon, so he crept up and tapped the big man on his shoulder.

"Coach Woods? Hi, I just transferred here and—"

"No time son. Look out there, ya see? Full pads. Full pads means game time. Got no time to train new kids son. No time."

"Yes, sir, I understand sir—"

"Git."

"Sir, if I could just practice with ya'll for just today—"

"Off my field boy."

"What do you need?" Sam asked abruptly, desperately. "Everybody needs something. You're not happy with every starter you've got out there, no coach is. Whatever spot you need, I can do it, just let me try."

Coach Woods paused for a few moments, thinking that over. "What position do you think you play boy?"

"Whatever position you need, sir. Honest, I can do it."

"Well I suppose I could use a middle linebacker. I got a returning starter, but he got us killed on the run game last year. Cost us a game in the playoffs. You think you can be a linebacker?"

"Yes sir. Please just let me try."

"Well alright then son, go on in the locker room and have our equipment boy set you up with some gear. Not gonna have some kid gettin' his ribs broken on my watch, gettin' sued an' shit. You can try to play linebacker against my starting offense, but if you're getting yourself hurt I'm pullin' you right out and you can go join men's gymnastics. That clear?"

"Yes sir."

"Where'd you say you were from kid?"

"Ohio, sir. And Tennessee before that."

"Hmph. You military?"

"No sir."

Woods stopped to remove his hat and scratch the sweaty clumps of his hair. "Hmph. Well all right then go get them pads on son. You're wasting my time, and I ain't gettin' younger."

Sam never hesitated, and sprinted off towards the locker room to get gear. Getting the first yes was the hardest part. Once he got that first yes, he knew he could get more. His talent would speak for itself.

True to his word, Coach Woods let Sam jump right into his scout team defense. Better find out right away if the kid could play or not, Sam figured. If the coach didn't like what he saw, he'd be off the field in two snaps. So better make those two snaps damn good.

Sam had never been a linebacker before. At his school in Tennessee, he had started at quarterback as a freshman, pissing the hell out of a couple juniors and seniors who felt like they had waited their turns. At McKinley, he had played quarterback for a couple games before he got his throwing arm ripped out of its socket, and then wide receiver after he was healthy enough to get back on the field. He had never considered the possibility that Finn had gotten him injured on purpose to get his spot back, but after everything that happened with Quinn, he saw Finn a little differently. Maybe everyone else was right and he was just too stupid to notice these things.

Even though he had never played the position before, he got the gist of how it was supposed to work. If the quarterback dropped back, he dropped back, covering the tight end for a pass. If he handed the ball off, stuff the line and stop the run game. Running quarterbacks, like Sam had been, were trickier because they would drop back to pass, wait until the linebackers vacated their positions, then sprint through the holes their linemen opened up for them. But Sam knew their tricks. And then there was blitzing. If he only had two snaps to get this guy's attention, his best chance was to blitz. Sacking a quarterback was the flashiest play a linebacker could make; it was how a linebacker made a name for himself. And how you win a coach's attention.

He sized up his odds. First he'd have to make it through the offensive line. They weren't as big as the guys at McKinley. Not even two of them put together would equal one Shane Tinsley. But he had watched them play a few snaps, and they were quick. He'd have to be quicker to get through them. But they didn't know him, didn't know how he moved, and that was an advantage he'd have to capitalize on.

The quarterback was hard to read. He was tallish, maybe six foot, hard to tell. He was in good shape, but not great shape. A little thick around the middle. A lot like Finn, actually. Chances were, like Finn, he wouldn't be so fleet of foot. But even slow quarterbacks could be dangerous if they were well trained. He'd seen big, strong, oafish quarterbacks make linemen twice their size and speed look like ballerinas grabbing at air.

Sam crouched, eyeing the ball. As soon as he saw the center's hand flinch, he sprung, darting towards the line. Lowering his shoulders and spinning, he made it through almost untouched, and no sooner had Bobby Donahue dropped back to pass than the ground was flying up to meet his back in a green and white blur.

The whistle blew and Sam sprung up from the ground and the tangle of limbs beneath him. He stuck out a hand to pull the other boy up, but the kid ignored him, rolling to his knees then popping up to his feet with a snort and a grunt. He glared at Sam, knocking his shoulder as he bumped past him into the huddle.

_So you wanna play it that way huh._

Play after play, Sam shot through their line like a bullet through glass, leaving shards of linemen in his wake and smashing Bobby Donahue into the earth. The kid was so scared that even when Sam dropped back to cover a pass, he would rush his throw and over or under throw his receiver by a mile. Every other play, Coach Woods had Bobby by the facemask, barking in his ear, and he just seemed to get worse and worse under the pressure. Sam didn't need to be the quarterback; he just needed to make the team. But if one half decent linebacker with speed and an aggressive coach could reduce this kid to the shakes, he might be getting that quarterback spot after all.

When practice was finally over, Sam stripped his helmet off and ran long fingers through his sticky blond hair. He closed his eyes and let out a long breath, enjoying the feel of the cool air on his skin. He nearly yelped when a pair of enormous hands gripped him by the shoulders and shook him harshly.

"Hot damn kid, you're somethin' else! Where'd you say you're from again?"

Sam would have to get used to that thick southern drawl again. Being away from it for almost a year, it sounded almost foreign to him.

"Ohio, sir. And Tennessee before that."

"Right, right," Coach Woods nodded, his hand still clasping Sam's shoulder. "Well I tell you what boy, you was about as good a linebacker as I ever had out there. I know my offensive line ain't big, but they quick, and you made them look like they was children. That what you are naturally son? You born a linebacker?"

Sam paused nervously. "No sir . . . but I can do it, sir, if you let me try."

"I seen that boy. What position do you play really?"

"Quarterback, sir. And a little wide receiver."

"Hmm," Woods paused, scratching again at his hair. "Well I really do need that linebacker, but I tell you what boy, I'll get you a few snaps at quarterback. It may not be tomorrow's practice or the one after, but I'll give ya a look boy, ok?"

"Yes sir, thank you sir. So I can come back tomorrow?"

"You betcha boy. What did you say your name was?"

"Sam Evans, sir."

"Ok then Sam Evans. You be here 15 minutes before practice starts tomorrow to get your cleats on. We run to start practice, and I don't tolerate my boys being one second late. That's how you win a championship. Now git."

"Yes sir."

As Sam trotted off the field, his eyes scanned across the line of the cheerleaders as they practiced. It was crazy how different it was here—and probably everywhere else—than at McKinley.

Quinn had always worked as hard at cheerleading as he had worked at football. She went for runs at the first light of dawn. She did one hundred crunches a day. She ate healthy. At their practices, the girls (and the guys who got to stare up their skirts) sweated and bled and held painful smiles on their faces while their legs shook with pain and fatigue. Sam was often jogging off the field for the day when Quinn was still at practice, instructing the other girls to hold their tired arms straighter or point their toes more. And Coach Sylvester barked in their faces at least as much as Coach Beiste.

The cheerleaders at Scott County were nothing like that at all. These girls were smacking gum, chatting, and occasionally waving their pom-poms around. The spent most of their time watching the boys run around on the practice field instead of practicing their own sport. They looked nothing like the athletes being trained at McKinley.

At the end of the line, one cheerleader stood with her arms folded tightly over her chest. She was a pretty girl, but in a strange way. Her hair, pulled up in a sloppy ponytail, was a dull brown with loose curls. Her almond-shaped grey eyes were set too wide, and a spattering of freckles covered the bridge of her nose. The same freckles trailed down her bare shoulders and arms. She was top heavy. Her legs were stick-thin, and her hips narrow like a boy's, but her breasts were larger than most girls in high school, larger than Sam had ever seen on a girl her size. And yet, for all her awkward features, she was still pretty. Not pretty in the perfect way Quinn was pretty, but interesting to look at.

"Hey new kid," she shouted at Sam as he jogged towards the locker room. He froze. Obviously no one knew his name, so he couldn't expect much more, but he felt like the name "new kid" would haunt him wherever he went. He stopped running and took a few steps towards her.

"Hey, I'm Sam."

He smiled and stuck a hand out. The one thing he had learned in all of this was to keep smiling. Smile even when you're hurt or sad or afraid.

She placed a freckled hand daintily into his and let him shake it. "Lindsay."

"Pleased to meet you, Lindsay." He let the slight drawl he had been hiding while he was in Ohio come back out. It wasn't the severe, twangy accent they all spoke with here, but it made him feel less foreign.

"Charmed."

The smile began to droop from Sam's face as he realized that she was not pleased to meet him. Not one bit. The girl's pale lips pressed into a line, and her grey eyes were sharp as darts.

"So you met my boyfriend."

Sam dug through the dredges of his memory, trying to figure out when he could have possibly met this girl's boyfriend. More importantly, this girl was clearly pissed about something he had done involving her boyfriend, so he had better figure it out soon before some dude crawled out of the woodwork to pummel him. He had only been in the state a few days, how could he have screwed it up already?

"Umm, I don't—"

"The _quarterback_, idiot."

Sam winced, remembering all the times in elementary school—before he was a star football player and before he was considered attractive—when kids would make fun of his struggles with reading. The taunts faded away as he grew into popularity. Girls wanted to date him and boys wanted to be him. But the words stung, and they stuck with him. _Stupid, idiot, retarded_. He still shied away from reading out loud in class, and if people caught him stumbling over words, he told a joke or did an impression—anything to get them laughing and distract them from the truth—that he was dumb.

"I don't understand," Sam said, hating the sound of the slight whimper in his voice. And he really didn't understand.

Lindsay stepped close to him. She was so small that her eyes were level with his chest, but those grey eyes stared up at him in defiance.

"You may not know me yet, but you will. I'm royalty at this school. And Bobby waited long enough to be the quarterback of this team. He's gonna be a real big star. He and I are gonna be prom king and queen this year. And if you think for one second, _Sam_, that you're gonna take that away from us, from _me_, you are very, very mistaken."

Sam's shoulders slumped as he walked her stalk away and rip the pom-pom out of a girl's hand.

_Jesus help me_, Sam thought, _Why does everyone care so much about being a goddamn prom queen?_

He sighed and headed once again for the locker room. If he didn't hurry, he'd be late for his first shift at the Dairy Queen.

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When you really thought about it, there weren't a lot of great reasons to get out of bed. It was summer break, so she didn't need to be up for school. She was filthy rich so there would never be a legitimate reason for her to get a part-time job. And she wasn't about to flip burgers or scoop ice cream for bratty children for the rest of the summer. She hadn't been to cheerleading practice in three days. She didn't bother calling Coach Sylvester to tell her why she was missing, but her mom answered her cell when Coach called to bark and faked a stomach virus for her. Even if she wanted to go to practice, which she didn't, it wasn't until 7. Coach wanted them doing their basket tosses in the blinding field lights—game day conditions.

She used to babysit a few days a week for Stevie and Stacy, but now they were gone. Gone to Kentucky, which might as well be Siberia for all it mattered. Quinn's own baby was ten blocks down the street, but she wasn't Beth's mother anymore. Some woman, some substitute teacher ex-Broadway wannabe singer with wrinkles around her eyes and too big teeth was Beth's mother now. Her boyfriend was gone. So really, when you thought about it, the fact that she had been in bed until 2 o'clock every day since Sam told her he was moving wasn't a big deal. She wasn't missing anything.

She had been laying in bed yesterday when something told her that if she wanted to see Sam one more time, she had better run. It wasn't the magical type of goodbye that you always saw on TV shows. She hadn't looked pretty. When she leapt out of bed, there was no time to shower, and her short hair had been clumped and spiked with sleep. She threw on a wrinkled sundress that she had picked up off the floor, and she probably smelled a little off. She only had time for a little smudge of cherry chapstick. When she arrived, she was breathless and flushed. She probably looked like she hadn't been out of the house in days, which, of course, was true. She imagined she looked something like the bag ladies picking fries out of the cracks of the subway tiles in New York. Sam would probably be glad he was moving away, with her looking like that.

In the end, she had been glad she went, though. By the tightening in his body when she pressed against him to kiss him, he didn't seem to mind her impersonation of the homeless. It had hurt a lot, the breaking up. But she knew deep down that she needed the closure. The last thing she needed was some lovesick golden retriever puppy calling her every night whimpering about how he missed her. She didn't need the longing and the missing and the tears and the emails and the phone calls. She didn't need to drive hours to see some guy every few months. So instead she was cold.

And when you looked at it like that, there wasn't really a great reason to get out of bed.

Quinn glanced over at her nightstand where the blue green numbers of her alarm clock flashed the time: 5:26. Blue green like Sam's . . . _Shut. Up. That's a ridiculous thought_. She rolled over to her other side and stared at the window. The blinds were down, so she didn't have to deal with the sight of the unkempt children romping up and down the cul-de-sac, but the sunlight was bright against the blinds, illuminating them most annoyingly. She closed her eyes and pulled the covers up tight to her chin. Even though it was August and was what felt like eight hundred degrees outside, the central air kept the house almost frigid. As she lay silently, she heard the padding of footsteps approaching her door and pressed her eyes closed tighter, trying to will them away.

"Quinnnnie!" her mom sang as the door to her room flew open. "Come on Quinnie, get out of bed!"

"Why." Quinn's voice was as cold as an arctic sky and just as smooth.

"Why? Because you've been in bed for days," her mother answered. "And we're going out."

"Out."

"Yes, silly. Out. We're going out. You need to do something. Go get in the shower."

She yanked the covers back and forcibly pulled Quinn out of bed. She pushed her towards the door of her en suite bathroom, and Quinn managed to undress and stand under the spray of hot water. But even the steam couldn't warm the chill in her bones. When she was clean enough, Quinn returned to her bedroom in her fluffy white robe to find the outfit her mom had laid out for her on her bed. It was enough to make her tired eyes pop open wide.

In the doorway, her mom was standing, arms folded across her chest, shoulders leaning against the doorframe, a coy smile on her lips and a twinkle of mischief in her eyes. On her bed was a pair of black leather pants that couldn't have been more than a size 2, a strappy silver sequined top cut impossibly low, and a pair of six inch patent leather heels. She turned to look at her mom, shocked.

"Since your father doesn't live here anymore, I figure we girls can have some fun right?" she smiled suggestively. Her mother always was a great seductress. That's how she won over her father.

"Come on Quinnie, you're a beautiful girl. There's no reason not to look it. You were wasted on that filthy boy. And there's nothing wrong with making men drool as long as you don't give in to their temptations, right? Get dressed. I'm going to do your hair and makeup."

When Quinn looked at herself in the mirror, she was astonished. She looked at least twenty-four, and while her dad would have said she looked like a prostitute, really she looked like a celebrity on the red carpet. Her mom had done her short blonde hair in loose curls so that the ends stuck out in all different directions. Her lids were heavy with a smoky glitter shadow, and long false eyelashes shaded her honey brown eyes. A hot blush accented her high cheekbones, and her lips were painted a deep, seductive red. And her mom had spritzed her with a spicy musk. She looked like she was ready for the cover of Vogue. Or one of those racy magazines they kept in the very back of the newsstand. She smirked at her reflection and turned to check out her ass in the leather pants. She was definitely going to make some guys cry tonight.

Her mother was dressed more conservatively, but was still seductive in a curve hugging black dress. She was still gorgeous at forty-five, and easily looked ten years younger.

When walked up to the door of her mother's favorite haunt, nobody bothered to card her.

"Dave, you remember my daughter Frannie," she called to the bouncer.

"Hey Judy, Hey Frannie," he held the door open for them.

They sat down at the bar and within minutes, there were men on either side of them and martinis sliding across the bar top towards them.

"This is how it works Quinnie. We look beautiful, and they pay for us to have a good time. Now, we're only doing this this one time because you're sad and gloomy. I always find it productive to have a good girl's night out. You'll forget about that homeless boy in no time. But you have to promise me, Quinn, that you won't run off doing this with your friends. This is just between us girls, and just this one time, just to make you feel better, ok?"

"Sure mom," Quinn answered easily, not bothering to tell her mother that she had been drunk on wine coolers before and had more than her share of beer at Rachel's stupid party.

But she had never really had serious liquor before, and her mother was right. By the fourth martini, the pain was gone, replaced by a perfect numbness, and she had forgotten all about that boy.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

**Within the week, as promised! I anticipate keeping up a more fast-paced writing schedule because as the material heats up, it gets more interesting for me to write as well. Chord tweeted today about taking his clothes off . . . so a tribute to that will be coming soon. I like this chapter and hope you do too. Please read and review!**

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Quinn forced her arms up into the air in a tight fisted V. She felt like she was moving in slow motion as she swung them down in front of her, flinging her legs out to the side into a toe-touch. She tried to point her toes, but her legs felt funny, sluggish, and she couldn't manage to get her toes straight out before the concrete blocks of her feet came crashing back down to the earth.

In the background, she could hear the music pumping, and she tried desperately to keep her steps in time with the thumping bass, but there was a second-long disconnect between when her brain gave a command and when her body reacted to it. She was vaguely aware of Coach Sylvester shouting across the field, but she couldn't make out any of the words. There was just the blur of the music and her voice, the waving of hands, the swishing of red and white pleated skirts.

She tried to follow the steps as she danced her way over to the mount she was supposed to be on top of. She weaved her body in between the two girls who would be her bases and let the spotter close in behind her. Back when Quinn was a perfect cheerleader, she would have a giant, unwavering smile plastered on her face for the entire routine. She once sprained a wrist in the middle of a routine, and that smile never dimmed. But now, she had to concentrate every ounce of energy she had just on getting in the right position at the right time.

Quinn lifted her foot onto the basket, and before she could stop her head from swaying, she was being launched into the air. She shot into the sky like a bullet, and her stomach plummeted out of her body. She was supposed to be kicking her feet out into a spunky toe touch and making some obnoxious face of shock and joy. But Quinn couldn't make her legs go, or her arms, so instead she just soared up like a rocket towards the darkening night. When she looked up, the field lights were blinding and made her stomach churn. She pressed them tightly shut to avoid the sharp pain behind her eyes, but nothing seemed to help.

When she reached the apex of her flight, her stomach did a sharp flip-flop, and Quinn had to swallow hard to prevent its contents from coming up. She crashed down as fast she went up. When she neared the ground, she heard her bases and spotter shouting her name desperately. Coming out of the toss, Quinn was supposed to lean back and hold her feet up so that the girls on the ground could catch her in a cradle and pop her right back up into the rest of the dance routine. Instead, she was hurtling towards the ground feet first. At the last minute, she tried to pull her knees up into a tuck, but it was too late.

She hit her teammates' outstretched arms with her sneakers. The force of her deadweight fall snapped the girls' wrists down, and Quinn crashed down to the field with a heavy thump. Her teammates' arms broke her fall, but she hit the ground hard enough to knock the wind out of her. She gasped and rolled to the side, hugging her ribs. She groaned, the tears stinging at her eyes, as her stomach lurched. The bile burned at the back of her throat, and she tried to hold it back, but before she could regain control of her body, she was retching up the clear liquid that had been her dinner.

The other girls circled around her, staring uneasily as she groaned and heaved. Seconds later, Coach Sylvester shoved through the huddle, throwing a girl out of the way to the ground. She slammed to her knees on the field and pulled Quinn up into a seated position by the front of her polyester uniform. She grabbed her by the ponytail and wrenched her head to the side so she vomited onto the grass. Quinn coughed and hacked as her coach held her in place.

When Quinn stopped shaking, Coach Sylvester rose and dusted off the lap of her track suit. Quinn rose behind her, shakily, with the help of two of the other cheerleaders.

"Stop staring and get back to work!" Coach barked at the rubber-neckers. "Sandbags! Lead them through. I want it done three more times before I get back. Q, with me, now!"

Quinn followed unsteadily behind as Sue led her back to the edge of the bleachers. She turned to face Quinn, her arms folded across her chest, her mouth pressed into a thin line as her eyes surveyed her head cheerleader.

"What the _hell_ are you thinking," Coach Sylvester demanded, her voice even.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Quinn coughed. "I told you I had a stomach bug."

"Cut the bullshit, Q. You think I don't know what alcohol looks like? I know I look good, but I was not born yesterday, Quinn Fabray. You're drunk. Or hung over. Give me your pom-poms."

"What?"

"You heard me. Turn over your pom-poms."

"But I didn't do anything!"

"Cheerios carry themselves with grace and class. They are the most beautiful, most successful, most accomplished girls at this school, and everyone looks up to them. You disgraced this uniform once by getting pregnant at sixteen. And out of the goodness of my overly sympathetic heart, I let you come back. Well, I will not let you make a fool of me twice. Until you're able to conduct yourself in a manner befitting your position, I can't have you representing my squad. Clean yourself up, Quinn."

"You _can't_ do this to me!"

"I already did." Sue flipped on the power to her megaphone and aimed it inches from Quinn's face. "NOW GET THE HELL OFF MY FIELD."

Quinn wanted to cry. She always cried. It had always come so easily before. She blinked and blinked, willing the tears to come. Sobbing was the only release she knew. There was so much boiling emotion pent up inside of her, but her eyes were cold and dry as the winds of an arctic night. Nothing could break inside the walls she had constructed around the vulnerability living somewhere deep inside her. Nothing could reach her there, not even her own attempts to touch it.

Her skin felt hot and sticky, and she was finding it as hard to walk as it had been to dance. Even breathing was hard enough. What she really needed was just a little cup of that vodka her mom kept in the kitchen cabinet.

Quinn had been skeptical about going out to a bar with her mom, but her mom was totally right. It made her feel almost 100% better. Different men bought her drinks all night, and the fact that they were in their thirties and forties and a little bit chunky started to wear off by her third drink. By then, they were all funny and charming and seriously hot. She was smiling and laughing and dancing when her high-heeled feet slipped out from under her, catapulting her into the arms of an unknown savior. When she righted herself and removed her face from his salty chest, her breath caught in her throat. His black hair was slicked back into a short ponytail, which he had tucked into a straight-brimmed Vans baseball cap. His lanky arms were covered in swirling red and green and black tattoos. Across his chest he had Biblical verse tattooed. Her mom would like that, surely. And his grey-green eyes were piercing as he pulled her close. Quinn was mesmerized as he smirked at her. He was dark and dangerous, so unlike sweet, innocent, church boy . . . damn him for sneaking his way into her thoughts again.

By the end of the night, Rad, or so his friends called him, had her pushed up against a wall in the dimly lit back corner of the bar, making out with her feverishly and grinding his hips against the dampening crotch of her leather pants.

Quinn hadn't even thought about getting out of bed until one o'clock the next day, and when she did, she had a blistering headache. The light pouring in from the blinds threw her head into a tailspin, and she felt like, if it were possible, her brain would vomit. Her mom, who either hadn't drunk as much as she had or was much better at coping with it, had gone out for the day to a lake house club with her group of Christian mothers, so Quinn had the house to herself. Nothing unusual. She stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes, and searched through the cabinets for her mom's bottle of Ketel One. If it worked once it could work again right?

And for the most part, it did. When the numbness started to wear off, when the pain started to set in, when the memories started to flood back, she would just take a few more sips and let the clear liquid burn away her ability to feel for a few more hours. Then she couldn't feel the loss of Beth, the loss of Sam, of her father, her sister, her mother, of everything in her life that had once been good. They were all gone, and so was she.

She started seeing Rad during the days. He was forty-two, and by daylight, she could see the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, the greasiness of his hair, and the dinginess of his clothes. She could smell when he hadn't washed in a few days. But he seemed to get her. They would meet on the steps of the middle school, abandoned for the summer, sip from his flask of whiskey, and talk. He understood the pressure she was under—the pressure to be beautiful and perfect and popular. The pressure to get excellent grades, to lead the cheerleading squad to a national title, to hold onto a star athlete boyfriend, to be a good Christian girl. The pressure to be better than everyone else. He understood, or at least he nodded when she talked.

And he encouraged her. He told her that she didn't need to wear all the makeup or be a cheerleader for people to like her. Those things seem like a big deal in high school, he explained, but out in the real world, real men like him wanted women who were real too. Those women didn't hide behind bright smiles and pleated skirts and little gold crosses around their necks. They were natural. They weren't fake. They walked around with their insides on display for the whole world to see—no Cover Girl, no fancy clothes, no false personalities to shield them. No walls.

It sounded like a dream to Quinn. A dream that was less impossible than it had seemed the day before.

"_Heyyy princess_."

The call snapped Quinn out of her daydream as she was walking past the bleachers to the locker room.

"Got a little bit of a headache?"

Quinn squinted as best she could, her head pounding in time with the dance music blaring from the speakers. In the dark under the bleachers, she could just about make out three shadowy forms.

"Come on over princess, we ain't gonna hurt ya," one of the shadows, a different voice, called to her.

"What do you want?" Quinn called to them, her own voice sounding loud and excruciating in her ears.

"You wanna feel better?"

Quinn looked around then took a few steps towards the bleachers. The velvety blackness of the cave stood in stark contrast to the blinding lights of the field, calling to her overexposed eyes. The smell of cigarette smoke wafted out, and for a reason she couldn't explain, it smelled faintly relaxing. There was another pungent, skunk-like smell that Quinn couldn't identify.

As her eyes adjusted to the low lighting, Quinn began to recognize the faces emerging from the darkness.

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"Sam! Please hurry. Ticket 62 has a birthday but I really need you to get back and finish these other tickets. Go!"

Sam shoved a hand into the well of cherries and yanked out twelve bright red berries by the stems. He swiftly dropped them one by one onto mounds of sprinkle covered whipped cream, shoved the entire order onto a serving tray, and raced out into the restaurant in search of ticket number 62. When he spotted three tables pushed together, crammed with four adults and a bunch of bouncing, shouting children, he assumed he was headed in the right direction.

He was tired. Really, really tired. It was nearing ten o'clock, and he had already been at work for four hours. It would be another two and a half before he got to go home for the night. And before that, he had been at six hours worth of football practice. They were on their last week of two-a-days. The first session was from nine to noon, then they got a two-hour break for lunch and rest, and then it was back to the field from two to five. Between five and six he showered, scarfed down the sandwich his mom packed for him, and drove the old pickup to the Dairy Queen. His shift ended at twelve-thirty, he drove home, and passed out until he woke up for more punishment the next day.

Neither Sam nor his parents had expected his day to be this exhausting when they decided he would get another part-time job. He was working just as hard and just as many hours as when his dad hadn't had a job at all and he was the sole financial support for his family. But no one had anticipated how truly minimal minimum wage was. His job peddling pizzas in Ohio had been a tipping business, so even though he was only making three something an hour, if he moved quickly, smiled a lot, and charmed the hell out of some nice middle aged parental types, he was making decent money.

Here at her royal majesty the Queen of Dairy's, he was making a whopping seven dollars and twenty-five cents an hour. Even if he was working full time, which he wasn't, he would barely bring in enough per week for groceries for a family of five. The ten dollars an hour his dad brought in was enough for the rent and a tiny bit more, but that was it. His parents had insisted, promised, and then insisted again that once school started, Sam could cut back on his hours. But he just didn't see how that was possible with what they were bringing in versus what they needed to survive. If anything, he might need to increase his weekly hours by working weekends.

So he kept his hopes for the upcoming year at a sustainable low and settled in for another year of long, exhausting days and too-short nights.

When he reached the table with his tray, he pulled a giant smile onto his face.

"So I heard that _somebody_ at this table has a birthday today," he said, depositing the frozen concoctions one by one in front of the excited children. "Who could that be?"

"Me!" A hand shot up belonging to a little strawberry haired, freckled girl in a pink dress, looking every bit the princess on her birthday.

"You?" he asked, faking surprise and squatting down next to her so that he was level with her big blue eyes. "And how old are you today, ten?"

"I'm only six," she squealed.

"Wow, only six? I could have sworn you were at _least_ ten. What's your name sweetheart?"

"Megara!"

Sam raised an eyebrow.

"Her name's not Megara, she's just obsessed with Hercules right now," a woman he assumed was the little girl's mother cut in. "It's actually Megan."

He smiled. The little thing was adorable and reminded him so much of Stacy at that age. He couldn't believe how fast his kid siblings were growing up. And how much of it he was missing.

"Well, since it's your birthday today, I think we can pretend you're a Disney princess. Would you like that?"

The little girl shook her head so hard that her strawberry curls bounced. Sam led them through the happy birthday song, inserting the name Megara instead of Megan, then scooped up his tray and headed for the back of the house, the smile falling from his face. He walked slowly until he was out of sight, then all but sprinted behind the ice cream counter. Ten more tickets had lined up in the three minutes he was gone.

"Sam, please," the desperate voice of his manager called. She was only six or seven years older than him, and she wasn't mean, but she depended on this job, too. He understood. He pulled the brim of his official DQ baseball cap down tightly over his eyes and flashed her a smile. "Don't worry Jenn, coming right up." Her shoulders sagged a bit, and she let out a sigh of relief, allowing a tiny smile to creep over her face. There weren't many people you could rely on in this industry. There weren't even many people who weren't total deadbeats, so he moved as fast as he could, lining up cups of soft serve to make Blizzards.

Towards twelve o'clock, their summer closing time, things slowed down almost to a crawl. Only a few orders trickled in, and he had the luxury of breathing while making them. In between orders, he was able to clean all the counters and the machines, clean up the candy bar, wipe down the tables, and close the umbrellas on the outdoor tables. If he could get all of the side work done by the time the restaurant closed, then he could be on his way home by midnight.

Of course, as happened every night when he wanted to get out of there, an order came through at exactly 11:55. Five large Blizzards meant that he would have to clean the soft serve machines, clean the counters, and clean the candy bar again, of course. It was the risk you ran by getting your side work done early. And they were doozies, too. Not just five large Blizzards, but five large Blizzards with about six different types of candy a piece. At some point, it couldn't possibly taste good anymore.

When he finished assembling the order, he loaded them up on the tray and headed out from behind the counter. He forced the smile back on his face. Even if he was only making minimum wage, the Dairy Queen was damn well going to get its seven and a quarter worth out of him. Make it the best seven twenty-five they've ever spent, his dad always told him. If you make yourself invaluable, they can't let you go, right?

"Hey _Sam_."

Sam's smile faded, and he stuttered a step when he realized who was on the receiving end of his ice cream delivery. Seated around large table in the center of the floor were Bobby Donahue, two other guys from the football team, a cheerleader Sam recognized, and Lindsay. _Lindsay_, who had promised to make his life a living hell.

He couldn't imagine that she felt any gentler feelings towards him then she did the last time they spoke. Things had been going great for him on the field, which in turn meant that the popular kids liked him less and less. Everyday at practice, Coach Woods was giving him more and more snaps at quarterback, and he was completing passes left and right. Most of the team was impressed by him and happy to have him on board if he could help get them one step closer to a state title. But Bobby had his cronies. Sam knew which receiver to avoid, because every time he drilled a pass right into the kid's hands, he dropped it. Coach Woods always reamed the receiver out instead of Sam, since it was always a blatantly good pass, but that wouldn't help him any in a game. He also knew which of the linemen worshipped Bobby, and if the blitz was coming from his right side, he knew he had to get the ball off quicker because this kid would let it through.

And every time one of the other guys got excited about how well Sam was playing, or every time Coach Woods clapped him on the shoulder pads, Little Miss Lindsay gave him the death glare from the sidelines. Bobby himself didn't seem nearly as enraged as his girlfriend. Sure, he shot Sam dirty looks, but really his response seemed to be to struggle to be better. He took it as a challenge to win his spot in everything they did. Every time they got on the line, he tried to race Sam to the death, even though he was infinitely slower. He tried to out throw him. All of it—the animosity from some of the other players, the dirty looks, and Bobby's desperate attempts to earn his spot back—was almost enough to make Sam go to Coach Woods and tell him he wanted to be a linebacker. That was probably his fate anyway, since with Bobby in the saddle they had a decent quarterback and a good linebacker, but without him all they had was a good quarterback and no linebacker. But he just couldn't quite do it. It was fine if Coach told him he was a linebacker, but Sam had never just given up on something like that.

He breathed a little easier when he noticed that Lindsay and the others were smiling. Everyone but Bobby, who looked like someone had taken a dump in his coffee.

"Hey ya'll," he said with a smile. "How was the fair?" There was a farmer's fair in town that everybody he knew was going to, and he figured that's why they were out so late.

The other four wouldn't answer him, wouldn't even make eye contact with him, but Lindsay smiled and said in her sweetest Kentucky drawl, "Oh it was just fabulous. We're so sorry you couldn't make it Sammy."

"Maybe next year. Chocolate with Heath bar, peanut butter cups, and cookie dough?"

Lindsay raised her freckled hand. When he had placed each of the desserts in front of his new schoolmates, he turned to head back to the counter.

"Enjoy it guys."

He only got about three steps away.

"Hey hobo."

Sam froze, her voice sending chills down his spine. Did he have homeless written all over his face? Did he smell homeless? Or was it just the fact that he was sixteen and working? There must be other kids out there with jobs. When would he ever escape this fate? College maybe. Maybe then he could reinvent himself. But, of course, college was for people who could afford it, and for people who deserved to be there. Not idiots like him. He turned to face them again, deflated.

"Can I get something for you Lindsay?"

"Didn't ya'll used to flip these things over?" she asked sweetly, poking at her Blizzard with the long, red, plastic spoon.

"Flip them over?"

"Yeah," she cooed, looking around to her friends for support. "When I was a kid, when you ordered a Blizzard at Dairy Queen, they flipped it over before they handed it to you to show you how thick it was. Remember that ya'll?"

Nods and murmurs all around. A glimmer of evil flashed through her eyes.

"We should see if Sammy here did a good job making these for us, shouldn't we."

She locked eyes with Sam as she slowly upended the massive cup. It felt like everything was happening in slow motion, and Sam couldn't tell if his brain was slowing things down, or if it was true that the ice cream was thick. Glob after glob of chunky, melty chocolate ice cream slurped onto the table, depositing lumpy gobs of candy everywhere it touched. One by one, the other cups overturned as well, and the table was soon leaking with a mound of melting ice cream, all to the sound track of obscene laughter. Lindsay and the others stood before it had a chance to drip onto their expensive clothing. She approached him, twiggy hips swaying, and stuffed the empty cup into his chest.

"That was _really_ good, Sam, thanks."

She giggled as the other cheerleader wrapped her arm around her shoulder. Bobby gave Sam a look, somewhere between apologetic and disdainful, and followed the rest of his friends out. Sam felt nothing. He wasn't angry, or even sad. Maybe it was just because he was so freakin' tired. He pulled his uniform hat off and ran his hand through his hair before replacing it.

Jenn, his manager, came running over when she saw the mess.

"Oh my God, Sam, what happened?"

"I'm so sorry Jenn, I'll get it cleaned up."

"Did those little brats do that?"

Sam nodded.

"Do you know them?"

"A little bit. I don't really know anyone."

Jenn put a hand on his back between the shoulder blades and gave it a gentle rub. She grabbed the nearest garbage can and dragged it over, tossing Sam a rag.

"Come on, I'll help you out."

By quarter to one, Sam finally had the place clean enough that the people opening for lunch wouldn't be stuck wondering if Willy Wonka had puked in their restaurant. He crawled into the truck, crossed his fingers, threw up a prayer to Jesus, and sighed when the engine caught on the second try. He turned up a good country tune on the radio.

As he drove down the strip, he noticed the motel where they had spent their first week in Kentucky. It was a beat up thing, pretty disgusting by the standards of a better person. Sam was glad they hadn't had to live there long. The house they were renting was actually really nice. It wasn't big or anything, and he was sharing a bed with his brother, but really, it was just like a smaller version of the house that got foreclosed on in Ohio. It was already starting to feel like home, because it was the place where his family could start to be happy again. With Sam working, it was impossible for them all to sit down to dinner together again, but at least there was real food to eat when he got home.

He felt himself blinking as he tried to navigate himself home to the sticks from downtown. He was just so tired. Every day, so tired. On weekends he was all but a zombie to his family because all he wanted to do was sleep. Football was barely fun anymore because of how exhausted he was. Every hit his body took felt like a tractor trailer. And for all that, he had a check to give his family for an astounding two hundred and sixty dollars for two weeks of work. He dreaded to think what he'd be making when he went back to school. It wouldn't even be enough for food and some decent clothes. He just wished there was a way. A way he could make decent money for his family without sacrificing absolutely everything, including his health and his sanity.

As he neared the end of the strip, he saw the familiar flash of green neon broadcasting XXX across his dashboard. Sam wasn't quite sure what it was or what they did in there, but he figured it was some kind of stripper bar or something. Stallionz, he thought it was called. And if you happened to be looking just as the car passed at a certain angle, the neon of the triple X's illuminated the placard sign hanging beneath: Help Wanted.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

**Warning for lots of smut in this chapter. Like smutty all over the place. I wish I could say that if you don't like the smut, you could skip this chapter and move on to the next, but this one's kinda important, and I don't see it getting much more PG in the future. Hopefully, you'll find a good blend of sexy, creepy, and funny in this chapter. And if you like it (or if you don't) please review! I miss hearing from you all. It really keeps me excited and encouraged about the story. Thanks as always to my three most loyal and wonderful readers and reviewers: Mandorac, Readingtoomuch, and Dosqueen67. If I ever publish a real book, at least I know I'll sell three copies. Your opinions are always appreciated : )**

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Sam looked around for the seventh time. If his mom or dad happened to see him here, they would kill him. Literally kill him. Beat him to death with a Bible, revive him by drowning his sinful ass in holy water, and then kill him again. He parked the pickup behind the building so it couldn't be seen from the road. His mom and dad had bought another old clunker when they got to Kentucky, so Sam was lucky to have the truck at all, but what that really meant was that at any time, his parents could drive by and catch him in the act. And then kill him. It was beside the point that they had no reason to drive down the strip at six in the evening. So he checked one more time.

He told his parents that he picked up another shift at the Dairy Queen to cover one of the other workers. But for the last three days, all he could think about was this moment. He was so nervous that at first the idea felt like a complete impossibility. But slowly, he had talked himself into at least showing up to ask about the job. Stevie was growing out of his shoes, and even though the house they rented came furnished, there were so many things that were broken. His mom and dad hadn't said anything to him about needing more money, but he could tell. He could see it in their faces.

So here he was in the parking lot of what he was pretty sure was a strip club, well before any of the action should start for the night, willing himself to go in. He didn't really know anything about bartending. Actually, he didn't know that much about alcohol at all. He had been drunk a couple times, the last time at Rachel's party over the winter, but even then Puck had just been filling his cup to the brim with unidentifiable liquor, and Sam had obediently drank whatever was given to him. He had no idea what was in there or how to recreate it. Not that it had tasted good.

He had tried to prepare for today by learning a little bit more about drinks, which was proving to be a tall order without the internet. After football practice, he could use one of the computers in the school to check his email and Facebook, but only for five minutes once or twice a week, and it definitely wasn't the place to research alcohol. Instead, he asked everyone at the Dairy Queen, who all looked like alcoholics and delinquents anyway, what their favorite drinks were and what went into them. He figured if he could remember what went in them, he could just put it in a cup, slosh it around, and that would be good enough.

He also invested in his first fake ID. He wasn't sure if you had to be eighteen or twenty-one to serve alcohol, but he figured he better be on the safe side and found someone to make him an ID with his own name and picture that said he was twenty-one. It cost him thirty bucks, so he had better work up the courage to walk in that door so that his hard earned money wouldn't be completely wasted. It's not like he could afford to take his new piece of plastic out for a spin.

The part that scared him most, well not scared, but that made him super nervous, and the part that would sign his death warrant with his parents, was the strip club part. He would never admit it to any of the guys, especially Puck and Finn, but he had never seen a girl naked. The closest he ever got was with Quinn that steamy day on her pool deck when she was wearing that white bikini he could just about see her nipples through. He had been so ready then. So ready to peel that soaking, skimpy fabric off of her wet skin and have her. Despite the fact that everyone at McKinley thought he had lost it to Santana, he was still a virgin. He had made out with her a lot and squeezed her boobs and her butt a few times. But he didn't want to have sex with her until he loved her, and a month into their relationship she got bored with him and moved on to cheat on him with a gay dude. A hug, a kiss on the cheek, and a sparkle in her eyes was the extent of his physical relationship with Mercedes.

So yeah, he had never seen a girl naked. And these probably weren't girls like the slim, small-chested girls in high school. These were probably women, with real everything, swinging around poles and swaying their wide hips as they unhooked their bras. He wondered if they really showed everything, or if they kept all their underwear on like in the movies he wasn't supposed to have watched. He wondered if those back rooms really existed, and what they did in them.

It suddenly occurred to Sam that the longer he stood out in the parking lot, the more opportunity there was for someone he knew, namely his parents, to catch him standing there staring at the door like a creepy teenaged perv. He took a deep breath, shouldered the heavy door, and stepped into the darkly lit club.

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Quinn laid on her back under the bleachers, trying to blow smoke rings up into the air. Mack laid next to her, demonstrating. It had only been three days since she met Ronnie, Sheila, and Mack—the girls who called themselves the Skanks. Only three days since she had been kicked off the Cheerios, and three days since she smoked her first cigarette. But already, she was feeling so much better.

It was like all the weight had just been lifted off her shoulders. That night, she had been on the brink of a legitimate panic attack when Sheila had given her a few hits of pot to mellow her out. She said it would make her feel better, would take the edge off her hangover, and would make her happy again. It was partially true. It did make her feel better. It definitely took the edge off her hangover. And in a sense, it made her happier. She could laugh, but inside it was still a blank.

The cigarettes kept her chilled out during the day, and the alcohol got her hot at night. With all the pressure off of her, she could really do whatever she wanted. Most kids going into their senior years, as her mother kept reporting from her friends in the Christian Mothers' Club, were going on college visits so they knew where they wanted to apply early decision. For Quinn, college was the last thing on her mind. It was just one more way for her parents to control her. They just expected too much from her. Richard's son John was a shoe in at Dartmouth, what with their legacy and all, and Margie's daughter was about to start her first year at Berkeley. Ohio State would be a disappointment, her father always told her, unless of course she got a full academic or cheerleading scholarship. Then, such a low class school could be explained to their Ivy League friends at dinner parties. Now she wouldn't have to worry about the acceptances or the rejections; now she just didn't care.

She wasn't a cheerleader anymore, so Coach Sylvester would be off her back. And Santana too. She was tired of the pressure to look like a Cheerio, to act like a Cheerio, to represent the Cheerios. It was always the same, everyone looking at you, studying you, waiting for you to slip up. Laughing and cheering when it happened. Without the head cheerleader status, the trophy boyfriend, and the model daughter status, Quinn didn't have to worry about people liking her. She could be who she wanted and say what she wanted.

She could tell Santana what a bitch she'd been for always gunning for the top, and a backstabber and a whore for stealing Sam. She could tell her dad that he was an asshole for shunning his youngest daughter and kicking her to the curb when she needed him most. She could tell her mom how lame it was that she sided with her husband instead of protecting her daughter, then turned to drinking when her husband up and cheated on her. And she could tell Puck how he'd ruined her life beyond repair without even stopping to think, even for a second, that getting his rocks off could change a person forever. All of it was true, but she had never said it before, because before it had been so important not to upset people.

No college to worry about, no parents, no popularity, no pressure. And no more Holy Mary. The change, or maybe it was the alcohol, had awakened an animal of desire within her. Ever since Rad had drunkenly shoved her up against the wall of a bar, Quinn had felt the need to be wild. To unleash herself. No more goody-two-shoes Christian girl, blushing and fingering the cross around her neck when boys gave her wicked looks anymore. Now she was fingering something else.

Two afternoons ago when they were all high, Quinn had revealed to her new friends that she had only fucked a guy once, and that she and Rad were only making out and groping. Mack had been shocked and disgusted.

"Rad's forty-two, Q, and you're not a little girl anymore," she scolded. "He's a grown man, and you're a woman. It's not just about kissing boys so they'll think you're pretty and take you to prom anymore. He's got needs, and so do you."

A woman. She was a woman. Quinn had to say it a hundred more times in her head before it started to sink in. No one had ever treated her like a woman before. Like an adult. She had always been treated like a child. Like a child who made mistakes and couldn't handle the consequences on her own. Always being talked down to and made to feel like her feeling and her needs weren't real. But Mack was right. She was a woman now, and nobody could tell her what to do. She had needs too, and there was nothing wrong about two adults in a relationship giving each other pleasure. It was normal, Mack said.

So last night, when she was lying in bed with her hand in her panties, thinking about that afternoon by her pool with the incredible body of a hot blond writhing beneath her, Quinn called Rad.

Rad was more than happy to oblige her. He had been trying to push her further since that first night at the bar, but so far, she had been unwilling to do anything more than let him shove his tongue down her throat and paw at her ass. It hadn't felt right. Something just wasn't there. She liked how Rad made her feel like a real woman, like he understood her thoughts and opinions, but she didn't love him anymore than she had loved Puck when she slept with him. But she was done with trying to listen to the inconsistent, irrational, impossible wailings of her heart; that was a piece of junk machinery that had led her astray one too many times. The only thing she was interested in now was satisfying her body. And no one could tell her no.

Rad was no romantic, but he could get the job done. He was at her house within ten minutes of her call, pushing up her window and climbing through it. Without saying a word, he slipped his flask out of his ragged jacket pocket and handed it to her. She took a few deep swallows while he fiddled with her speakers, turning up the music to a deafening roar. Gin tonight. It was making her head sway and the fire between her legs spread. While Rad was throwing his jacket over the back of her chair and fumbling with his sneakers, Quinn pulled her panties off and flung herself haphazardly on her back. The liquor coursed through her and flushed her body with a hot, tingly glow.

He was on her quickly, naked and staring down at her as he stroked himself lazily to an erection. His body was pale and scrawny except for the sagging gut he carried from all the alcohol, and he was covered all over with the same stringy black hair that made up his ponytail. His face was tanner than the rest of him, and the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth from years of smoking drooped. His grey-green eyes were still the most attractive part about him, but something was still off about them. He looked at her like he wanted to fuck her senseless, like he wanted to devour her piece by piece. Quinn knew that it ought to make her feel sexy and desired, but it wasn't at all like when another pair of green eyes stared at her like she was the most spectacular thing in the world. Whatever, he wasn't here now. He left her, and she would show him just how big a fuck she gave.

"Fuck, Q, you're so fuckin hot. I'm gonna make you scream. All those little boys you banged, just wait til you get a taste of real man."

He spit into his hand and smeared the white gob onto his erection, pumping in and out of his hand until Quinn could see it shining with the sticky, phlegmy substance. His prick stood out from a bush of wild, unkempt black hair that Quinn could smell even at a distance. It was salty, with a faint odor of rot. It was slim and almost pointy, and seemed to be encased in a sleeve of skin. Rad was yanking on dick furiously, popping a purple, spongy-looking head out through the end of his fist on the down strokes. Even though she had only ever seen one before, Puck was what she had expected a man to look like; this one was weird and kinda gross.

Quinn wanted to ask him to put on a condom, just so that thing wouldn't actually be touching her, but she felt like that would be totally uncool of her. She was a grown woman, Rad was her man, and real women were passionate with their lovers, not prim and proper, cold and untouchable. She spread her legs around his hips and watched as Rad's eyes widened.

"Fuck me, Rad, I'm ready," she said, hoping her voice sounded deep and smoky and sexy. Hoping it didn't betray the nerves fluttering in her belly.

Rad didn't need to be told twice. He lined himself up with her opening, pawed her hips, and shoved into her. Quinn gasped. Maybe it was because she wasn't a virgin, because she had given birth, or even because Rad wasn't very big, but it didn't hurt this time at all. Still, though, the shock of being completely filled so suddenly and after so long stunned her and made her body freeze.

Rad groaned and swore as he humped away at her, thumping her head against the headboard on every thrust. She was starting to feel numb down there between her legs. Quinn wrapped her arms lightly around his back, trying to find a spot to place her hands that wasn't oozing with boozy smelling sweat. His forehead was dripping down onto her face, so she turned her head to the side, watching the green numbers of her alarm clock blink. At some point, it occurred to her that she was supposed to be doing something, so she tried to make whimpery noises like they do in the movies as his cock drilled in and out of her.

"Are you almost there?" he panted, sweating and shaking from the six minutes of exertion. Clearly, he was close himself.

_Not really_, she thought dully.

She didn't understand why it wasn't working. With Puck, it was her first time, it hurt, and she was too drunk to really be an active participant anyway, so she understood why there were no lightning bolts shooting down her spine. This time, she had been soaking wet and touching herself to memories of a gorgeous set of abs when Rad showed up. Sure, he wasn't that big, and she was a little bit tipsy, but she could distinctly feel every thrust as he pounded away inside of her. So why was her body responding with no more pleasure than a side of beef getting hammered flat? She wondered if maybe she was broken, if somehow her body was missing the nerve endings required to create pleasure, because right now, all she felt was skin slapping against skin and the uncomfortable feeling of being filled with something where it didn't belong.

"Yeah!" she whined instead, "Oh fuck, I'm so close!"

Rad flipped her over onto her hands and knees and starting drilling into her from behind. Her bed was squeaking, and the headboard was crashing into the wall loudly on each stroke. This was what great sex was supposed to sound like, right? Between the raging music, Rad's groans, and the bed bashing the wall, they must have been creating quite the racket because Quinn could hear her mom banging desperately at the door and rattling the knob.

"Quinn! Quinn stop that!" her mom shouted, sounding scared. "Quinn what are you doing? Open this door right now!"

Her mom's dismay only made her scream louder, and was the spark she really needed to get into the role. She screamed and whined and swore, begging Rad to fuck her harder, faster, to fill her up. She made sure her mom could hear every filthy thing that came out of her mouth. Rad seemed to appreciate the additional effort, and within seconds he was shooting his seed deep into her belly. He collapsed onto her back, drenching her in sweat, then rolled off to find his clothes.

"You better go," Quinn warned him as her mom rapped incessantly at the door. "She'll get the cops here if she thinks something's wrong."

Rad pulled his clothes on and stepped through the window.

"I told you it would be awesome babe" he winked.

When he was gone, Quinn pulled a long, oversized t-shirt over her head. It may have been Sam's at one point; she didn't know, and didn't give a fuck. She unlocked her door and whipped it open, her hand on her hip and a look of annoyance on her face to greet her mother. The woman looked like she had either been torn from sleep or for an awesome binge. She was rumpled, hair askew, makeupless. She looked desperate, even scared.

"Yes?" Quinn asked cockily, the smirk clear on her face.

"Oh my God, Quinnie, what are you doing?! I don't understand this, Quinn. We didn't raise you to be like—"

"Fuck you, mother." Quinn slammed the door in her mom's face and turned the lock. "And for the record, you did," she snarled at the closed door.

For a moment, she could hear sobs coming from behind the door, then the padding of her footsteps fading away. Quinn flopped onto her back on her bed, knees bent up in front of her, head thrown back on a pillow. She was frustrated. On her nightstand, Rad had forgotten his flask in his haste to get out. She unscrewed it and drew a few more swigs of the potent liquid. As the heat burned down through her chest into her belly, she allowed her hand to crawl down her torso and bunch the old blue t-shirt up around her waist. Her fingers slithered between her legs to finish the job Rad couldn't do. As she worked herself towards orgasm, tears of rage built in her eyes—rage at her inability to escape the memories of the passionate kisses from full lips she would never have.

Now, as she laid on her back under the bleachers with the rest of her girls, trying in vain to blow smoke rings, she searched for the right way to tell Mack that there was something wrong with her. That it hadn't worked, and that she couldn't do it. That she sucked at it. That she didn't feel confident or excited or passionate at all. That all she felt like was a numb, half-baked version of her old self. When she finally got the words out, Mack looked at her sympathetically.

"You know what I think you need Q?" Quinn heard for the second time in four months, "You need a new look to go with the new you."

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The inside of the room was dark, but Sam's eyes adjusted quickly enough. Behind the bar, a tall guy in jeans was wiping down the marble bar top and polishing glasses. A woman and a man, probably in their forties, sat at the bar going over paperwork. When they heard the heavy door close behind him, they looked up.

"Can I help you?" the woman asked. She had a smoker's voice.

Sam rubbed his palms against the sides of his jeans, trying to keep them dry. He didn't know why he was so nervous. It's not like he hadn't applied for jobs before. But obviously, this one was different. This one could get him in serious trouble.

"Uh, yes ma'am. Hi. Umm. I saw the help wanted sign outside, and I wanted to, umm, apply for the job."

The woman turned to face him fully and pushed her glasses up on her nose. She was about forty-five, short, and had definitely seen better days. Her long hair was dyed a sunburned blonde, and her skin was dark and leathery. She had probably been tiny once, judging by her stickish arms and legs, but she was thick around the middle, and without a bra, her large breasts rested heavily on her belly. The tank top she wore did nothing to hide her nipples in the air conditioning. She looked to Sam like one of those biker ladies you always saw on TV and in movies.

"Ok babycakes, come on over. Let's have a look at ya," she said, sounding tired. Sam wondered how many people had applied for this job before him, and how many they had turned away already.

When he stepped closer to the pair, into the light, the woman examined him head to toe.

"Turn around."

Sam obeyed. He heard some appreciative "hmms" pass between the man and woman, but he couldn't tell what they were looking at or talking about. He glanced back over his shoulder at them.

"Ok, back around."

This time, she stared into his face suspiciously.

"Beautiful," she said brusquely to her colleague, who nodded in agreement. She turned back to Sam again.

"How old are you?"

"Uhh, twenty-one ma'am."

"Uhh twenty-one? Or twenty-one."

"I'm twenty-one, ma'am," he tried to say it more confidently, kicking himself for fumbling over such an easy question.

She eyed him again, the suspicion clear in her squinted gaze.

"Well you sure are baby-faced for twenty-one. ID?"

Sam dug his wallet out of his back pocket. There was nothing really in it except some change, his real ID that said he was legal to drive, and the fake. He made sure he pulled out the right one and handed it to her. His eyes fixed on his shoes as she studied the card.

"You're not twenty-one," she stated, handing the ID back to him. "How old are you? Seventeen? Eighteen?" Sam started to protest, but she cut him off quickly. "Look, I don't really care how old you are if you're the right fit for the job, but if you get yourself in trouble, I'm telling the cops that you showed me credible proof that you were twenty-one. You'll be on your own, got it?"

Sam nodded rapidly.

"Ok then, here." She reached behind the bar and pulled out a cardboard box. After rooting around in it for a moment, she pulled out a scrap of shiny red fabric and tossed it to Sam. "Go in the back room and put these on under your clothes, then come back out."

Sam examined the item of clothing, or what was supposed to be clothing, in his hands. It was a tiny, red bikini bottom. It might have, _maybe_, fit his eight-year-old sister, but still, neither Sam nor his parents would ever let his little sister go out in public in something that revealing. There was no chance in hell this thing would fit on him. And why did they want him to wear this thing in the first place? If it went under his clothes, what was the point, and what did a pair of underwear have to with bartending anyway? He glanced back and forth between the man and woman, but neither seemed to be paying him any mind anymore, so he headed into the back room, confused.

In the back there was a locker room of sorts, where he figured the girls kept their things while they were working. There was a bench, so he sat down to pull his shoes off. He stripped out of his jeans and his own underwear—a pair of black cotton boxer briefs he found perfectly comfortable. And they fit him properly. He studied the red bikini one more time, trying to determine which side was the front and which was the back, then took a deep breath and pulled them up over his legs.

He had to wiggle a little bit when he got them up there, but they were on. Sort of. He pulled his shirt—a plaid, thrift store button down—up around his waist so that he could get a good look at these things in the body length mirror.

They were, umm, woah.

His first thought was that he looked super gay. Maybe a girl would look cute in this thing, but he was a dude, and he wouldn't be caught dead in public in anything less than gym shorts for a run or board shorts for the beach. Only European guys wore speedos, and this get up was pretty much that. Sam hated the thought of what his dad would do if he ever saw him in something this ridiculous.

In the front, he managed to tuck everything in, but it was a tight squeeze. Every little detail of his junk, literally everything, was on complete display through the flimsy material. He wasn't doing quite so well in the back. When he turned around to check out the rear end in the mirror, he was horrified to find that this thing was only covering a fraction of his ass. There was so little material that it was impossible to keep it from riding up his butt, and even when he danced around trying to pick it out, it insisted on jumping right back up there. Mercedes had always joked with him that he had some legit booty for a white boy, but he never realized it was this bad. The only saving grace was that he was in perfect shape, so the teeny tiny waistband wasn't cutting into his sides and giving him muffin tops. Gross.

Sam hurried back into his jeans and belted them securely around his waist. Trying to walk normally, without doing the wedgie walk, he headed back out into the main bar. The man and woman, and now the bartender, were all sitting together talking. They had cleared a few tables away to leave space on the floor. They looked up when he came back in.

"All set?" she asked.

Sam nodded and gulped. He tried to remember all the drinks the people at Dairy Queen had told him how to make.

"Ok, you can go ahead and get started then. Obviously, normally you'd be up on the stage but for these purposes it's fine to just do it here. Unless, of course, you're more comfortable up there. Do you need music?" They all sat back in their chairs, staring at him.

_Get started what_? Sam was drawing a blank.

"Umm, I'm sorry?"

"Music," she said, like he was incompetent. "Most of the guys find it easier to dance to music, but if you're ok without it just for an audition, that's fine with me."

"Dance?"

The three workers looked at each other. Sam couldn't tell if they were confused or amused. The woman took her glasses off and set them down on top of her head. She leaned forward.

"What do you think you're here for sweetheart?" she asked genuinely.

"Umm," Sam stuttered. He couldn't seem to get anything out today. "Bartending?"

She sat back in her chair and smiled at him gently.

"We're hiring a stripper, babycakes. That's what you're auditioning for."

Sam's lips fell open, and he felt a hot blush spreading over his cheeks and collarbone. _Stallionz_. The place was called freaking Stallionz. Duh. Duh, duh, duh. Why did he have to be so dumb? He was so embarrassed that he felt his hands shaking and his chest tightening. He started speed walking towards the door before he remembered he was wearing their stupid red bikini (Duh! Why was he so, so dumb?) and all but sprinted towards the locker room where he left his own underwear.

"Hey!" he heard the woman calling to him. "Hey, kid!"

He didn't stop for her, just kept hurrying into the back room. When he grabbed his underwear and sat down on the bench, she was already right there sitting beside him. Her hand settled gently on his shoulder. He was so red and so embarrassed he could feel hot tears starting to well.

"Hey kid," she offered, "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry," he stammered. "I just had no idea. I just thought. I don't know what I thought. I'm not very smart. I'm sorry." If he didn't stop, he was going to embarrass himself even worse by crying, and he wasn't about to let that happen.

"It's ok kid, calm down, nobody's calling your mommy. Why don't you just give it a try?"

"What, stripping?" Sam asked, shocked. He was a good boy, a Christian boy, from a good family, and no matter how much money he needed, it had never once occurred to him to do something that . . . wrong.

"Look, you came here for a reason right? Let me guess. Ya need money right?"

Sam looked at her, wide-eyed and innocent. He nodded.

"Ok, so here's the thing. You do a couple dances, work a couple group numbers, you make three hundred bucks and you worked for two hours. And all you gotta do is get up there, take your clothes off, dance around and let some housewives feel you up."

"I, I dunno. I can't," Sam said, shaking his head. He was mostly trying to shake out the idea of three hundred dollars for two hours of work.

"Look kid, I'm gonna tell it to ya straight. You are a _really_ attractive kid, and you're young. The ladies here will eat you right up. There's a lot of money to be made at this club. All cash, all under the table, no taxes. Just come back out there, show me what's under those jeans, and maybe I give you a job. Fair?"

Sam blinked, then nodded slowly, trying to digest the idea. He let her tug him up and lead him back into the bar.

"I'm Randi, by the way," she said amiably. "If I decide to hire you, I'll be your manager here."

"I'm Sam," he answered quietly.

Randi sat back down in her chair next to her friends. For the first time, Sam noticed that the man sitting next to Randi was extremely muscular, and was probably a stripper himself. Great. He stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets and shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

"Go ahead, Sam," she coaxed him. "I'm not gonna turn any music on, just undress nice and slow, ok?"

Sam nodded, feeling the heat flushing over his cheeks again.

"Isn't he gorgeous when he blushes?" Randi asked the bartender. The man wiggled his eyebrows. It only made his cheeks redden darker.

Slowly, his long fingers fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. He probably looked like an idiot, but he managed to undo the first few, exposing his chest. His nipples were hard from all the eyes on him, and he brushed his fingertips over them cautiously, almost curiously. He moved steadily, one button at a time, until the long-sleeved shirt was hanging open on his broad, muscular shoulders. He knew they were all staring, so he let his hands run down his chiseled abs before pushing the shirt off his shoulders to the floor.

This part was ok. He had been shirtless in front of people a hundred times. He knew he had a good body, even if he did feel a little fat sometimes. But as he unbuckled his belt and slid it through the loops, he had to take a deep breath and close his eyes. He had never been _this_ naked in front of anyone before, not even Quinn. The only time he had ever been close was in Rocky Horror when he had to wear those gold spandex for about twenty seconds before Mr. Schue took over. He kept his eyes closed as he undid the button on his jeans and slid the zipper down. _Jesus forgive me_, he prayed, and eased his jeans down his long, sculpted thighs until they puddled on the floor.

He opened his eyes to find three sets of eyes on him, two filled with lust.

"Come here baby," Randi purred, her voice low and husky. "Come sit on my lap."

He walked over to her stiffly and straddled her. He had never been asked to sit on a girl's lap before, and he was quite a bit bigger than this woman. He didn't want to crush her, so he eased his weight onto her cautiously. She didn't seem to mind. She placed her hands on his chest and caressed them down, slowly, over his abs to his hips, then down his thighs. They crawled back up, then down again, three more times. Randi seemed to be enjoying him thoroughly as he waited patiently, but then he guessed that's how this sort of thing worked.

She shocked him when her hands traveled around to his back then plunged into the back of the red underwear and gripped his bare ass, squeezing. He yelped and shot up from her lap. Randi just laughed at him and let him stand.

"It's ok cutie pie, calm down. But you do need to take those off."

Sam's eyes widened.

"Look, you don't need to take them off on stage, even though it would really be good for you if you did because you'll make more money. But I'm your boss, I'm the one thinking about hiring you. I gotta see what you're working with. Just turn around and pull them down around your knees."

_What the hell_, he thought. He was already in this deep. Probably already on his way to hell. So he turned around obediently, and pulled the tiny bikini down off his ass and let it bunch up around his thighs. He heard catcalls of approval both from Randi and the bartender, who by now he had established was gay. Someone reached out and gave him a heavy whack across his ass. He blushed, hoping at least that it was Randi and not the gay bartender dude.

"Ok, Sam, let's see it, turn around."

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and inhaled deeply. At first he had been nervous that he would get hard from all the attention. But in reality he was way too embarrassed and anxious for it to even be a concern. He turned slowly, his eyes still closed, his hands in front of his groin. A soft hand, Randi's, reached out and gently took his hands, lifting them away from his body for just a moment before setting them back down.

"Mmm a natural blond," a male voice stated.

"Jake, behave. This kid's way too innocent for you," Randi told off the bartender.

"Ok, Sam, thanks. That's all we need. Why don't you go get dressed and come back out so we can talk?"

Sam scooped his clothes off the floor and just about tripped in his hurry to get back to that locker room. The red bikini was still wrapped tightly around his thighs, but he waddled off anyway, he was so anxious to get out of there. He held his clothes in front of him and scuffled away.

When he was back in his own clothes, sitting on a chair they had pulled out for him, Sam finally felt almost comfortable again.

"So let me explain to you how this works," Randi started. "We think you're stunning and that you have a ton of potential. Dancing can be learned, and maybe you're a little shy, but lots of our customers are into the whole innocent boy-next-door thing. You'll get braver as you go. Anyway, we want to hire you."

"We're a ladies only club. We have one gay night a week, which you're not required to dance at if you don't want to. If you really need the money, they usually pay better than the ladies, but based on your comfort level with women, I can't imagine you're much better with men. Every night besides that one, we only let women in the doors. You get fifty bucks up front from me for coming in on time and helping out with whatever I ask you to do. Whatever you make up on the stage is yours."

"The harder you work, the more money you're gonna make. If you just stand there in the middle of the stage waving your hands and taking your shirt off, you'll make a little. If you dance hard, get out in the crowd and seduce the pants off those women, you'll make a ton. You don't have to let them touch you, but I promise you, you'll make much more if you let them stick the money down your thong than if you want them to throw it on the stage. We got bouncers, so nobody's gonna hurt you. What you decide to do in the private rooms is up to you."

Sam blinked. "Umm, private rooms?"

"We got rooms in the back the boys like to take their big spenders to for some one-on-one time. That's none of my business. I don't wanna know what you do back there, and I don't wanna know what you charged for it. Got it?"

"Uhh, yes ma'am."

"So what do ya think babycakes? You gonna be our new Stallion?"

"I, umm, I don't think I can. I'm just . . . My parents will kill me."

"First of all, you're twenty-one. I don't wanna hear a single word about your parents, ok? And how bout you just give it a try? You come in a couple nights a week, see how ya like it. Worse comes to worst, you decide it's not for you and I'm looking for another dancer just like I am now. Nothing hurt, right?"

Sam considered it. When you put it like that, it didn't sound like such a bad idea. And he would be making so much more money. _So_ much more. He thought about his mom and dad and the look of shame in their eyes when they had to tell one of his siblings that they couldn't get new shoes or clothes. He thought about all the times he was hungry and never said anything because it was better he feel that pain than anyone else. He thought about that pile of melting ice cream on the table at Dairy Queen, and how long it had taken him to clean it up.

"Ok, ma'am," he said shakily. "I'll try it."


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

**Sorry for another long chapter. I don't know what's gotten into me lately. I'm not sure if it's a good thing either. When I read back over my first story, I feel pretty proud of it, and all the chapters were 1,500 to 2,500 words until the very end when the chapters got much longer. Almost all of these chapters are in the 4,500 range, with some pushing into 7,000. Are you still enjoying them? Or are they too long to be consumable in a nice, easy bite? As always, I hope you enjoy the chapter, and I really do appreciate the reviews. I'd love to hear what a few more of you think.**

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"Quinn, please come out."

Quinn lay on her bed, slowly twisting the ring in her nose. Sheila had pierced it herself with lemon juice and a sewing needle, so it kinda hurt, but in that addictive way, like poking a bruise.

"Quinnie, please. Just open the door."

Her mom had been trying for days. Knocking, pleading, offering her new clothes and shoes and all the things that used to make her happy. Even offering her the things—namely her half full bottle of Ketel One—that she thought would make Quinn happy now. But nothing could make her want to sit through the endless lectures about God and responsibility, family and commitment. So she had lain on her bed, coming and going through the window as she pleased to hang out with her girls or to see Rad. Now her mom was pulling out the big guns.

"Come on Quinn, just talk to me. I'm your sister, we always talk about everything."

Quinn sighed and hoisted her legs over the edge of the bed. A sharp pain stabbed between her ribs when she tried to sit up, and she drew in a few wheezing breaths to steady herself. She pulled the door open and found Frannie—blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, manicured nails, pearls around her neck, neatly pressed Chinos, pink lipgloss—looking like a slightly older version of the girl Quinn used to be. Quinn wanted to shake her sister and tell her that she didn't have to listen to them either, that she could be free too.

She watched as Frannie did her best to suppress the look of shock on her face. Quinn knew she looked nothing like the girl her big sister remembered. Normally in the summer she had a healthy bronze glow from long days by the pool, but she had spent so much time lately in her room or under the bleachers that she was a pale wintery white. She wore a sleeveless t-shirt hanging lazily over a tattered, floor-length skirt she had found at the thrift store. Everything she "bought" on her thrift store shoplifting spree with the Skanks was black. A steel ring hung from the side of her nose, and her eyes were lined with heavy black makeup. Her short, uncombed hair was a shock of pink.

When Mack pulled the towel off her head, finished her makeup, and turned her chair to face the mirror for the first time, Quinn had been stunned too. The pretty was still there. Nothing could take away the curve of her perfectly formed lips and her model's bone structure. But other than those staple features she was almost completely unrecognizable, even to herself. At first, she hadn't been sure that it was right. But then she remembered that brief feeling that had passed through her the last time she stared into her own reflection, and she dug through her makeup drawer for that little tube of lipstick covered in pumpkins. As she spread on the thick black lipstick, her lips curled into a smirk, and she felt truly wicked. Quinn Fabray was finally dead, and Q was born.

"Quinn, you look . . . " Frannie started, in shock.

"Free. This is the first time you've ever seen me free of mom and dad and the pastor and teachers and the chains of oppression that were holding me down," Quinn answered dryly, her lungs creaking.

"Um, ok. Well, can I come in?" She asked brightly, recovering quickly and raising a smile back to her face.

Quinn held her ground, surveying her sister and her tightly pinned smile, then shrugged and turned away from the door. She stalked to her bed and sat down on her hands, glaring at her sister expectantly. Frannie sat down on the bed next to her and touched a hand gingerly to Quinn's knee. Quinn eyed it angrily, as if it were burning her, but didn't move to pull away. Her eyes stayed trained on Frannie's hand. It was the first genuine human contact she had felt in a while.

"Quinnie," she started gently, pronouncing her name like she used to when she tucked her in at night to read her bedtime stories, "Why are you doing this?"

"Doing what," Quinn answered, her voice crackling and dead.

"_This_," she exclaimed, waving a hand along the length of Quinn's black-clad body, "Whatever it is _this_ is. Just help me understand why, and I can help you."

Quinn removed her hands from beneath her legs and examined the chipping black polish on her nails. How could she possibly tell her sister why when she didn't even understand it herself? How could she tell Frannie that her baby, her beautiful little angel that looked exactly like her, had moved back into town with some woman who had no deeper connection to her child than a feathered old stork? How could she explain that right when she had been trying to move on and pretend nothing had happened a year ago, Shelby's return with Beth had made that completely impossible and brought her whole façade crashing down? And how could she make Frannie understand that she finally found a boy she thought was good enough to stand in as Beth's father, but that he had left her before they even had a chance? How could she tell her that she had no one. No best friends who stood by her through the hurt. No loving parents to protect her. No boyfriend to share the burden of her fears. No child to raise to never know the meaning of sadness or loneliness. How could she tell Frannie that she was alone, screaming for someone, anyone, to give a damn enough to come save her, but that no one was coming? No one would ever come.

"This is the real me," she stated glumly instead.

Frannie gently moved a hand to Quinn's cheek and turned her face so that she was forced to look at her. If it was her mom, Quinn would have bitten her hand off. But not Frannie. Not her big sister, who had been more of a friend to her than Santana or Brittany ever had, even when she was away at college. As Frannie studied her, worry clouding her honey brown eyes, Quinn surveyed her options. Here was her time capsule, her glimpse into the crystal ball. Here was her sister, the vision of what her life would be like if she stayed the course, if she got the scholarship, the boyfriend, the popularity. Frannie had just graduated, got a wonderful job, and her boyfriend was supposed to be proposing any day now. He had a great job lined up too, and soon they'd be having happy, attractive babies. Babies just like Beth that they would get to raise together in happiness and love and security. This was her choice. This was the other option.

"Quinn, how is this any different than what you've always done?"

"What are you talking about?" Quinn growled in response. How could her sister possibly think she was the same? How could she miss the change, miss the hurt?

"You're always trying to impress, Quinnie. You put so much pressure on yourself," she started. "Of course we all want great things for you, but nobody's ever pushed you as hard as you push yourself. I know mom and dad suck most of the time, but the popularity, the attention, that's always something you wanted. Isn't this another way to get people's attention?"

"I am _not_ crying for attention, Frannie! I can't believe you would say that!" she screamed, unsure of every word as she forced them out.

"No, that's not what I think. You're not crying for attention but you're still striving to impress people. Just now it's a negative impression you're trying to make instead of a positive one."

Quinn sat silently, unsure of what to say. She had no answer to that, really. Somehow, Frannie always managed to cut through all the bullshit and make things seem easy. Every time Quinn had an issue that she felt was bigger than the moon, something she couldn't even lay out in words if she tried, Frannie made it so simple. But she refused to believe it was that easy. If it was that easy, if all she wanted was for people to notice her, to pay attention, there were a hundred other ways to do that right?

Long minutes passed and she had no answer.

"Well, you know I'm always a phone call away right?"

Her lips pursed as she considered it. Where was Frannie when she got pregnant? When dad kicked her out of the house and mom did nothing to stop it? When her daughter was born and the sense of loss ensued? When her boyfriend humiliated her in front of a crowded audience with mousy insipid Rachel Berry? Where was she when her baby reappeared in her life calling another woman mama? When her boyfriend left her? Only a phone call away. Through all of it, Frannie was only a phone call away, but it was so far. On the other end of that phone call her sister was off at college having an amazing time away from the worries of little Lima Ohio.

She nodded. For the first time since her transformation, she really felt like she would cry. She didn't feel like such a badass and she remembered why she hated being sober. Her eyes flittered around for the flask Rad hadn't been back to collect. She hadn't seen him since she used him to get off. Or he used her. Whatever.

"Quinnie you need to register for classes. School starts tomorrow."

"I'm not going," she answered immediately.

"You still have to go to school, Quinn. You can't just lie here all day."

Silence.

"At least register, then if you change your mind you'll have something to go back to. It's not like they're charging you per credit. Please? For me?"

Quinn rolled her eyes. She wondered how much longer the old "please do it for me" shtick would work. It certainly wouldn't have worked for her mom, because Quinn didn't care what her mom wanted anymore. She truly stopped caring when her mom didn't stick up for her but now she wasn't afraid to let it show. But her mom had been desperate enough to send Frannie, and Frannie still had a few tokens left to play as far as Quinn was concerned.

"Fine I'll go."

"Great I'll drive."

"I can drive myself."

"I'll drive."

Quinn had to go through the registration process twice. The first time, she signed up for automotive, wood shop, and advanced pottery, but Frannie caught her signing up for introductory agriculture and insisted on reviewing her schedule. When Frannie was done, she was registered for English Literature, Calculus, European History, Environmental Science, Psychology, and French, all at an AP or honors level. Quinn figured it wouldn't matter anyway. She wouldn't be going to class whether it was AP French or basket weaving. At least this would keep Frannie content.

Frannie was oddly quiet as they slammed their car doors shut and pulled away from the school where Quinn would be imprisoned for the next year. She didn't say a word while she fiddled with the radio station, settling on an ungodly twangy country station. Quinn began to grow suspicious when, on the third turn on the way home, they made a left when they should have made a right.

"Where are we going Frannie?" Quinn asked, the suspicion clear in her voice.

"Just . . . to see someone."

"Frannie. Where are we going."

"We're going to see dad. I haven't seen him since I got home and he, he misses you Quinn."

"Pull over."

"Quinn, he really wants to see you. He wants to help, rea—"

"Frannie pull the fuck over I am not kidding pull over right now let me the fuck out!" Quinn wailed, throwing her fists against the dash and struggling with her seatbelt.

"Quinnie stop!" Frannie cried, hands clutching the wheel. "Just stop! I'm pulling over ok?"

Quinn's eyes were squeezed shut so tightly that they hurt and her hair was sticking to her face in sweaty pink clumps. Her nails bit into her palms and her knuckles were turning white. She really needed a drink.

Frannie pulled the car to a stop on the side of the road not far from home. She unlocked the doors and Quinn immediately sprang from the car, glaring at her sister.

"Was this all a plot to get me to see dad? The whole 'you're just a phone call away' thing?"

"Quinnie, please come home ok? Whatever you're doing now, just, when you're done, come home."

Quinn slammed the door shut and stalked off. She waited until Frannie pulled away, heading in the direction of their father's home, before she pulled a cigarette out of her shirt pocket and lit it. It actually wasn't a bad evening for a walk. In the first few days of September, the temperature had cooled considerably. The days were still hot, and from between the bleachers, Quinn could still see the football team sweating through their grueling workouts. But in the evening, as the sun faded to a hazy orange glow and the breeze rustled through the trees, it was very comfortable to be outside.

She took a drag of her cigarette as she sauntered down the streets of her wealthy neighborhood. Lights were flickering on in the million dollar homes, and children were slowly dropping their kickballs and hula hoops and dwindling inside. This used to be her favorite time of year, when she was younger. Back when Frannie was in high school, they used to go for walks around the neighborhood together on warm fall evenings. Quinn, who was still going by Lucy back then, would start feeling nervous in the last few weeks before school started, because another school year meant more taunts and jeers, more tortured attempts to get thin and pretty and popular. Frannie liked going for walks in the evening because they could examine everyone's home better with the lights on inside. But Quinn mostly used them to spill to her sister everything that was pent up inside. By the time Quinn went to high school and Frannie was in college, the walks were over. Quinn was already on top of the social pyramid, fighting to stay there, and she needed the time to spend with her boyfriends and her cheerleading friends anyway. But now that her high school years were coming to a close and the future was looking dim, she wasn't afraid to admit to herself that she missed them.

She paused on the sidewalk, sucking in another drag of that calming smoke. She wasn't sure what had brought her this way. It wasn't the most direct way home. But she looked up anyway. On the fifth floor, framed by a window of light against the darkening sky, Beth sat gurgling in the kitchen sink, Shelby's fingers easing shampoo through her wispy blonde curls. She could see her daughter clearly as she giggled and waved her chubby little arms in the soapy water. A smile of pure joy wrinkled Shelby's eyes as she played with her daughter. _Quinn's_ daughter. _Things would have been so much different._

The tears began to well up in her eyes. She dropped the cigarette to fizzle out on the ground and sprinted in the opposite direction.

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Sam tapped his fingers on the modest kitchen table, staring at the phone. Stupidly, he had been waiting for weeks for Quinn to call. He knew why she wasn't calling. She didn't have his number. He didn't own a cell phone, so when they moved, they had to get a house line with a new phone number. He would have to make the first call, and for weeks, he hadn't done it. Part of him was nervous that she wouldn't want him to. They had broken up, after all. It had been less than a month, but that was eons in high school time. Maybe she had moved on already. Or maybe she had been sitting around for weeks, lonely and waiting for him to call her. He picked up the phone.

It rang what felt like a hundred times before her voicemail finally kicked in. He checked his watch: eight o'clock. Quinn must be out at cheerleading practice. It was getting close to the start of the season. On the other end of the line, Quinn's bright voice asked him to leave a message at the tone. An atonal beep screeched into his ear, then an expectant silence.

"Umm, hey Quinn, it's, uhh, it's me Sam," he started awkwardly. He was no stunning orator in person, but over the phone, talking to someone who wasn't there, knowing that whatever he said was being recorded and that he couldn't take it back turned him into little more than a stuttering idiot.

"Look, Quinn, I know we haven't talked or anything since I moved but, umm, I just wanted to let you know I've been thinking about you a lot. I, uhh, I think about you every day, actually, and I miss you a lot. I know I'm probably not supposed to say that since we're broken up and everything, but I really mean it. And it would make me so happy if we could talk sometimes. So yeah, um, I hope you call me back soon. Anyway, I wanted to say good luck on your first day of senior year tomorrow. I'm sorry I can't be there for it, but I know you'll be amazing, you always are. You deserve good things, Quinn."

He allowed his heart to spill its contents into the answering machine, but once his mouth closed, the spell was broken, and he was out of things to say. He remembered to sputter out his phone number before saying goodbye five times and finally hanging up.

Sam rested his elbows on the table and cradled his head in his hands, easing his fingers through his hair. He was nervous. There was no lying about that. He had hoped a conversation with Quinn could provide a source of comfort and reassurance; an hour of calm in the middle of the tumultuous storm of his new life. Tomorrow morning would be his first day at his new school in Kentucky, Friday would be his first football game with his new team, and tonight . . . well, while everyone else was enjoying the last few hours of the dwindling Labor Day holiday, Sam would be working his first shift in his new job as a, a . . . dancer.

Two hands clamped down on his shoulders, and Sam leapt clear out of his skin as his mom leaned down to kiss the top of his head. He jumped and shook as if he had been caught with his nose in a Playboy, and a hot blush rose immediately to his cheeks. His mom's arms slid down to clasp loosely around his neck, and she placed a peck of a kiss on his temple before pressing her cheek to his.

"What's up baby? Why so jumpy?"

Once he recovered from the initial shock of being caught thinking an impure thought, it felt good to have his mom's arms around him. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against her shoulder, allowing her to squeeze him gently.

"I dunno," he sighed. "I guess I'm just nervous."

"I know sweetheart, I know," she murmured. "I know this has all been harder for you than you let on, but you'll make so many new friends. You always do. How could anyone resist you? You are _just so cute_," she said, smacking three more kisses onto his cheek with loud, wet 'mwah's.

"Mommmm," he groaned.

"Sorry baby, a mother can't help it." She released him from her clutches and took a step back, smoothing his hair. "Don't you have to be at the Dairy Queen tonight? It's already past eight."

Sam pressed his eyes tightly shut, the blush crawling into his cheeks again. He hated lying. He was shitty at it, it made him uncomfortable, it usually blew up in his face, and yeah, he was just shitty at it.

"Yeah, I um, I do, I just, they're only giving me the late hours now because, um, I'm so good at cleaning up, so um, they're gonna pay me at the higher rate and I only have to work, like, at the very end of the shift, so um, I need to leave soon, but, yeah."

His eyes eased slowly open, one before the other, to survey the damage. With his head still leaning back on her shoulder, Sam was staring directly up into his mom's face, his wide green eyes studying her hopefully. She studied him back, holding his face between her hands. Her eyes flitted back and forth between his eyes and his tightly pressed lips for what felt like an eternity before she finally smiled. Sam was grateful for that smile, forced and grim as it was. He allowed himself to release the breath he had been holding.

"Ok sweetheart. Well, I'm glad you won't be working quite so many hours, although I wish you didn't have to work so late. Promise me you'll come right home after your shift? I don't want you to be exhausted for your first day of school."

"I will mom, I promise. I should be home around twelve thirty, but I've got my keys. Please don't wait up for me."

After convincing his mom that there was no need to kiss him goodnight—he was sixteen years old, after all—he hopped into his truck and drove the ten minutes between his house and the club. On the way over, he hadn't pushed the truck past thirty miles an hour. He told himself it was because the engine could blow at any minute and he didn't want to be in the driver's seat when it did. But really, the longer it took him to get there, the longer it delayed the inevitable.

The dressing room was totally different now that it was full of guys getting pumped up for a show than it was when he had been there alone on an early evening. Before it had felt spacious and sterile, now it was cramped and bustling with frantic activity. As far as he could tell, he had four coworkers. Coworkers? Teammates? Colleagues? What the hell were you supposed to call a whole flock of stripper dudes?

The four other guys were all older than him, older by far. Brock the Rock (or at least that's what they called him in front of Sam) was in his early forties with a salt and pepper crew cut, a tightly trimmed beard, a hairy barrel chest, and steely eyes. Randi had introduced him as the dreamy husband every woman wished she had. Even if he was in great shape, he was old enough to be Sam's dad, which he found super creepy. He looked liked an accountant with his clothes on, but James Bond when he undressed. Sam tried not to stare; it was weird being in a room full of naked men. In the locker room for football, you just stared at your locker until all your clothes were back on. But that kinda wasn't the point here.

One of the others, Sharif, was the man who had been sitting with Randi at the bar when Sam first walked in to apply for the job. Sharif was maybe thirty-two, dark skinned, and hugely built, like he could crush a skull between his palms. The other two were in their late twenties, one Latino, one a white guy with dark hair, and both were the perfect image of the college frat boy, even if they were a few years past their toga days. Sam hadn't learned their names yet.

When he first came in with Randi, there had been a lot of whistling and laughter. Sam had tried to act cool so he would fit in with the older guys, but no attitude adjustment could mask his pouty lips and baby face. Brock asked Randi if she was so desperate for bodies that she started recruiting at the local elementary school, and Sharif joined in with the banter, even though he had been there with Randi when she decided to hire him. Sam knew he was blushing and shuffling his feet, embarrassed by the attention and the teasing, but once the guys had their fun with him, they were more supportive than he ever could have imagined.

They knew he was young, and they knew he was nervous. In the pizza business, it had all been a race. The faster you could get your pizzas delivered, the faster you could get back to take more, so everyone would fight over the routes. The drivers, typically pimply nineteen year olds, would bitch if one got more deliveries than another, or if one of them consistently got deliveries to the wealthier parts of town. Even at Dairy Queen there had been shady eyes if Sam got a tip from a nice family when he delivered their ice cream to their table. He figured it would be the same here. If he made money, that meant someone else wasn't, so he figured the other guys would use his bashfulness to see him fail.

Instead, they had done everything they could to calm his nerves and make him feel at home. _Crazy_, he thought, _I'm in a new town, going to a new school, on a new football team, and the most welcome I've felt is with a group of thirty-something male strippers_. He wondered if that said anything about him. They all assured him that the more business any one of them brought in the door, the more money they all made, so they were happy to have a fresh face around. Each guy—and Randi—offered little tips from their years of experience on the stage.

Sam found the most secluded corner he could to change into his little red—hot shorts was what Randi had called them—pair of spandex that cut high into his ass. When he suggested that hot shorts were made for girls, Sharif just shrugged, examining his own ass in the mirror, clearly content. Sam surveyed himself in the mirror one last time before sliding his jeans and button down back on. Randi had wanted him in his street clothes for his first dance, so he looked like they just plucked him right off the sidewalk, or the playground, as the guys kept joking.

In the last few days, he had been working out compulsively, trying to make sure his abs, and most importantly his ass, was in flawless shape. He had been pushing himself so far past his normal limit that his parents had noticed. "Just wanna look good for school," he had reassured them every time they asked, and they bought it easily. They knew their son, knew how compulsive he could get about his body when he was nervous. For the most part, they just let him go when he got like that, knowing he would settle back into healthier habits once his nerves calmed. And Sam was happy with the results. He knew he looked good, but that reassurance wasn't helping to steady his racing heart. This time his body wouldn't be judged by Quinn, or even by the rest of his friends like in Rocky Horror. This time it would be a club packed with adult women, throwing money and screaming for blood. Or worse, just standing there staring at him like a clown. _Fuck_.

He heard the roar of the crowd as Sharif worked them to a frenzy. Maybe he could still get out of this. Maybe, if he told her he was going to puke, Randi would let him sit this one out. He hadn't eaten tonight for that very reason, but still, it wasn't much of a lie.

"Don't think on it too much, kid," Brock the Rock said, clapping a heavy hand on Sam's shoulder. He must have noticed the look that passed over Sam's eyes. It was no longer one of nerves or discomfort. Now it was just pure, unadulterated fear. "Virgin dance is easy. No crazy costumes, no hard moves. Just get out there, move your hips to the music, and take your clothes off slowly. Slowly, kid, ya hear? The longer it takes you to get down to them shorts, the more time they have to wave them dollars around. And make sure you get out in that crowd. That's where ya make all your dough. They're gonna be all over you, but let em. Gets the adrenaline pumping."

Sam gulped and nodded, meeting Brock's gaze as if he were a six-year-old being told he needed two dozen shots. It must have looked comical, because Brock squinted at him for a second, then broke into a fit of guffaws and ruffled his hair.

To the sound of screams and chants, Sharif, known on stage as Cobra, came bounding back into the dressing room panting, his thong stuffed flush with cash.

"Ok Sam! Time to get out there!" Randi called, grabbing Sam's arm. Cemented to the bench, he stared up at her with huge eyes and an unintentional pout on his lips. "That's good, babycakes, keep that there. They'll eat you up."

She dragged him towards the stage and halted him just to the side, behind the curtain. "Wait here," she whispered. She strutted out to the center of the stage, microphone in hand.

"Ladies of Northern Kentucky!" Randi addressed the crowd, which roared back to her, arms waving tipsily. "We've got a real, live, virgin for you tonight!"

Sam sucked in his breath and bit at his lips as another scream erupted from the audience. _If only they knew_ . . .

"Our newest performer is so sweet that we call him White Chocolate. It's his very first time on the stage, so be gentle with my angel, ladies," she winked conspiratorially, her voice rising. "All right, here's what you've been waiting for! Let's pop his cherry!"

Randi backed off the stage, her high heels clicking.

"Go!" she commanded, but Sam was frozen.

With a shove, Randi and Sharif sent him stumbling out onto the stage in the middle of the spotlight. His eyes scanned out over the audience, heart caught in his throat. There were a few groups of college girls and what looked like a bachelorette party, but otherwise, most of the women looked to be about his mom's age. In the blinding lights, it was impossible to make out individual faces. The crowd let out a long, singing 'awww' as they saw the blush rising in his cheeks, then cheered as the thumping music erupted from the speakers. His eyes shot to the wings where Sharif was waving his hands, encouraging Sam to start moving.

He didn't bother trying to find the beat. In New Directions, he and Finn had always been unintentionally vying for the title of worst dancer. It really depended how you wanted to judge it. Finn had no coordination whatsoever, but could usually wave his arms in legs in a way that somewhat resembled what the rest of the group was doing. Sam, on the other hand, had a little swag going on, but was almost always rocking out to a beat in his own head, doing something completely unrelated to the choreography the group had decided on. Maybe now his instinct to stop thinking and just go for it would be of service to him.

To the wails of the crowd, Sam unbuttoned his shirt then turned towards the back of the stage to snap it open. He rolled his hips a bit as he slid the shirt off his shoulders and down his arms. It wasn't much in the way of dancing, but it was all he had, and the crowd seemed to approve. He didn't know what to do, so he just walked around the stage, remembering the instructions to go slowly and allow enough time for the audience to drink in his body. When he got to the end of the stage, he felt prying fingers tugging at his ankles. He looked down into the faces of swooning sorority girls and lusty soccer moms. He wondered briefly if this is how One Direction felt.

Sam unbuckled his belt and removed it, rubbing it over his nipples and down the line of his abs. He was careful to throw each item of clothing back towards the stage as he discarded it. Some of the other guys had thrown a shirt or a belt or a police baton out into the audience, but at least for now, Sam couldn't afford new clothes and needed all the ones he had for school.

The crowd started chanting his name—his stripper name—when he teasingly touched the button of his jeans with his long fingers. After removing his shoes, he lay down on his back near the edge of the gritty stage. He unzipped his jeans and thrust his hips in the air as he pushed the worn denim down away from his body. The jeans slithered down past his knees as a green cloud of cash rained down on him. As he became more and more aware of the amount of money covering his body, his confidence grew. He moved his hips along with the thuds of the bass, ass clenching with every thrust into an invisible rider. His hands roamed the length of his torso.

Feeling the charge filling the room, he sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the stage. Hands were on him immediately, gripping him and tugging him to his feet on the floor. When he pictured how this would all go in his head, he saw himself working his way out into the crowd, dancing his way between tables as appreciative ladies sipped martinis and handed him bills. Well that was all out the window. What felt like a thousand hands were all over him, grabbing, squeezing, and roaming places he only reached when he was in the shower. There were so many people on him that he felt like he was suffocating as they pressed him back against the stage.

He was in a total daze. It felt like he was in the ocean, swimming against a heavy tide, with about eight tequila shots in him blurring his vision and numbing his limbs. His only option was to let the tide carry him where it would. Between the pounding of the music, the squealing of the women, the smell of the liquor, the press of the bodies around him, and the nerves, Sam was developing a headache that sent waves of nausea rolling through him. All sense he had of how he was dancing or how much money he was making filtered out of him as he gave up control of his body to the mob.

The hands spun him and the voices rose up with new whistles and jeers. There was too much going on for him to process it all. Palms slid flat down his abs while fingers pinched and twisted at his nipples. Someone was gripping his hips so hard they would probably leave finger bruises. Bills were sliding so far into the front of his shorts that he could feel the warm, limp paper brushing across his flesh. The pressure at his back built and built until finally it became overwhelming and he gave into it, bending at the waist, his chest thumping flat on the stage. With one cheek pressed to the stage, he closed his eyes. They had managed to pull the skin-tight red shorts down in the back and were slapping his ass until it stung and glowed a bright red. Gentle hands turned rough by alcohol and desire kneaded his cheeks and pressed money between them. With his eyes closed, all he could do was feel and hear. "Gorgeous," "fuckable," "sweet," "hot," "innocent," "sexy," all floated past his ears in waves, but he didn't feel any of those things.

When he opened his eyes, they connected immediately with a woman standing off to the side of the stage, observing. She didn't grab at him like many of the other customers, anxious to shove their money anywhere on his body where it would stick. Instead, she studied the scene quietly, laying bills on the stage to be collected later. She was older, but not unpretty, with shoulder-length brown hair and dark, mischievous eyes. There was a silent confidence about her, like she didn't need to pry him open like everyone else because she could already see everything about him. Sam held her gaze until the music finally stopped.

When it did stop, it was like the spell had been broken. All of the women, sorority girls and soccer moms alike, removed their hands from his body and drifted back to their tables. Sam scrambled back up onto the stage and raised himself on unsteady feet. His knees felt weak as he stumbled towards the dressing room. Randi cleaned up the money he left lying in piles on the stage.

In the back room, the other guys clapped his back and shouted congratulations until they saw how shaken and unsteady he was. Sam drifted in front of the mirror, casually surveying the lipstick marks and love nips decorating his body. He collapsed onto the bench.

"You gonna take that out kid?" Brock asked gently, sitting down next to him. Sam looked at him in daze. "Huh?"

"The money, kid. We don't usually carry it home in our shorts."

"Oh," Sam said, glancing down at his shorts, which looked more like a grass hula skirt now, overflowing with cash.

"You're gonna find some money in odd places."

Sam slowly eased out of his stupor and pondered that for a moment, knowing it was true.

"Is it always like that?"

"It can be if you want it to be, but as you get better at it, you learn how to control a crowd better. You just went out there and let them mob you. You'll learn that it's all in the teasing. It's all about creating a fantasy, not actually letting them have whatever they want. They had all the power 'cause you were virgin and didn't know what you were doing. Now you gotta take that control back. Trust me, you'll have 'em licking out of your palm in no time."

Sam peeled every bill he could find off of his body. Brock was right. It took some serious digging, and he found wads of cash lodged under his balls and between his cheeks. He didn't really even remember people touching him there, but it must've happened, since the money got there somehow. Along with the cash Randi had scraped off the stage, it made a nice, thick stack.

"How'd ya do there?" Brock asked.

"One fifty. Is that good?"

"That's . . . _unheard_ of, for a virgin dance. Just think how you'll do when you're doing a whole show. Throw in a little back room lovin' and you'll be ready to buy yourself a big ole house in Louisville."

Sam stared down at the money in his hands, all wrinkled and soggy with liquor and sweat. It _was_ a lot of money, and for only fifteen minutes on stage. And it hadn't been that bad really. Almost just like showing off and messing around with one very special girl, except with hundreds. Maybe Brock had a point. Maybe there were big things to come. He pulled on his clothes to cover all the newly forming marks and tried to smooth the shock of his hair. If he didn't get home soon, to the bed he shared with his little brother, he would be exhausted on his first day of school.

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Quinn collapsed under the bleachers, heaving. There was no one there, no one to see her like this, but this place was quickly becoming home. The last purple light of the evening sun was streaming through the bleachers, casting striped shadows over the parched dirt. A sharp pain stabbed through her lungs as she gasped for air.

When she finally caught her breath, she dug around in the pockets of her skirt for her phone. At some point during her frantic run it had began beeping angrily, alerting her that she had missed a call. She pressed the playback button and set the phone down on the ground next to where her head was resting.

_Umm, hey Quinn, it's, uhh, it's me Sam._

She pressed her eyes shut, rubbing her forehead. _Jesus Christ. Why. Why now_. She just wished that for one moment, all the ghosts of the things she loved could stop attacking her from all angles.

_Anyway, I wanted to say good luck on your first day of senior year tomorrow. I'm sorry I can't be there for it, but I know you'll be amazing, you always are. You deserve good things, Quinn._

With a tortured scream, she launched the phone through the air and collapsed back to watch it fly.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

**So this chapter was originally supposed to be double this length, half Sam, half Quinn. But I'm done with Sam now, and it'll take me another week to finish Quinn, so I figured why not just give this to you all now. We'll let Quinn simmer for a bit. So here's a nice little chapter about Sam's first day of school. I also loved all of your guesses last chapter about who Sam's first time is going to be. It's fun for me because I know the outcome ; ) Enjoy the chapter, and please leave a review! I love looking at the story stats and seeing that 100 people read the last chapter, and 10 reviews would be so cool. See you all next week!**

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For the first time in his life, Sam was grateful that his little sister was crying. Her huge green eyes were dark with child's worry, long lashes brushing away crystalline tears. Her tiny mouth was pressed into a quivering wrinkle. Her voice had given way minutes ago to whimpers and sniffles. Sam crouched down next to her and pushed blonde curls back away from her face, holding her face between her hands. Behind them, Stevie shifted from one foot to the other, sullenly tugging at the straps of his backpack.

"Stace, don't cry," he soothed. "Everyone's going to love you, just like they always do. Didn't I tell you you're the smartest, most beautiful, most wonderful girl in the world?"

She shuffled a bit, poking her foot at a wad of dried gum on the sidewalk as she considered that.

"You're my big brother, you _have_ to say that," she said, stomping the gum to emphasize her eight-year-old logic.

"Stace, come on. Remember that time back in Tennessee when me and Stevie broke the window playing Transformers? And I told mom that the dog did it? Remember what she said?"

"_Samuel Evans_," Stacy squeaked in best little girl impression of her mother, "You are a _terrible_ liar. You bite your lips and stick yours hands in your pockets and squirm around. And your eyes are _sooooo_ easy to read. Don't you think I can tell when you're lying to me?"

"So you see how—"

"_You are grounded_!"

"Ok Stace. But see how everyone knows I'm such a bad liar? If I was lying about you being the smartest, most beautiful, most wonderful girl in the world, don't you think you'd be able to tell?"

Stacy squinted, staring into his eyes as if she was studying him, trying to find the trick to reading Sam that her mother had found so easily.

"See? I'm telling the truth."

He pulled her into his arms and held her tight until she started to relax against his shoulder. For a moment, he wondered what it felt like to have an older brother or sister, someone who would hold him when he was scared or nervous like he did for his little ones. But the oldest would always be the one with all the responsibility, and that was his job.

"But you said that to Quinn, too," Stacy mumbled into his chest.

Sam chose to ignore that and held his little sister back at arm's length.

"Let me see it?"

Stacy pressed her lips together tightly and shook her head back and forth, her curls bouncing. "Nuh uh."

"Come on Stace, open up." He jabbed his finger to her lips and started wiggling it, laughing.

Stacy wailed, her lips still pressed closed, and tore away from him angrily. She looked over each of her shoulders to make sure none of the other kids were looking, then opened her mouth wide in an awkward, pained smile. Where one of her front teeth should have been, only a gaping hole remained, her tongue poking at the raw pink gum. Sam's lips curled up into a smile at the sight of her missing baby tooth, causing the tears to well up in Stacy's eyes again. To an eight year old, it was a major embarrassment. But to her big brother, it was the evidence of her turning into a big girl right before his eyes.

"I look _stupid_! Everybody's gonna _laugh_ at me!"

"No you don't, princess," Sam murmured, pulling her back into his arms. He buried his face in her hair for a moment and closed his eyes. His fears and his nerves weren't real when hers were. "You look just fine."

Stacy sniffled loudly into his shirt and nodded. Sam stood up, towering over her. Behind them, Stevie was fidgeting and eyeing the front entrance.

"How bout we go find your teacher?" he asked, taking Stacy's hand. "Stevie, you want me to go in with you too?"

"Nah, I got this," he declared with swag only a ten-year-old blond kid could muster.

"Ok." Sam patted his backpack and sent him off towards the entrance, crowded with other little people pressing to get in. "Don't break too many hearts on the first day!"

Stevie shot Sam the death glare over his shoulder, then disappeared through the doors.

"Ok Stace," he looked down and her and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. "Let's go meet your teacher."

After Sam delivered Stacy to her third grade teacher, a kindly older woman with grey hair and matching eyes, with an explanation that she was new to the area and very nervous, he hurried back to his pickup and started towards the high school. He knew that the first day would mean tears and tantrums for either Stevie or Stacy, possibly both, so he allowed himself extra time in the morning, but still, if he didn't hustle, he would be late.

The thing about Stacy crying was that it let him go into big brother mode. In big brother mode, he was the strongest person in the world, older, wiser, and invincible. Making his little sister feel safe and confident required the whole of his focus, and it was a character he played for her benefit. But when Superman faded away and he was just Clark Kent again, all that bravado flew out with the cape. He was just a sixteen-year-old kid again, going to a new school in a new place, having to meet all new people, having to explain dyslexia to a whole new set of teachers, having to find his way in the hierarchy of a totally new high school food chain. The brief reprieve from the storms of McKinley had been the glee club, but he doubted that would be an option here. So it would be back to the grind. Struggling through classes, smiling at everyone who looked his way, trying to be a football star, trying to get people to like him.

Scott County was big. Much bigger than McKinley. The rows of lockers extended out in all directions so far that the people standing at the ends of them looked like little blurs. There were pros and cons to being caught in a jungle this big. On one hand, it would be much easier to be anonymous for a bit in a school this size. On his first day at McKinley, everyone had noticed the stranger in their hallways. The girls had blushed and whispered to each other, and the guys had sized him up, trying to determine if he was a threat to their girls or their spots on the team. Here, he doubted anyone would notice him. New kids probably came and went all the time here without setting off any alarms. On the other hand, though, how were you supposed to make friends when you were just a blond smudge on the sidewalk as far as everyone else was concerned? That, and the high likelihood of getting lost were the top worries clouding his brain.

"Hey _Sammy_."

That voice was like nails on a chalkboard, and it seemed to follow him around and appear whenever he wanted it least. Well, so much for going unnoticed. Seems like this school had been so kind as to send a welcoming committee.

"_Miss_ Lindsay," he answered flatly. Lindsay and two of her pet cheerleaders were leaning against the locker he was pretty sure was his. He couldn't see the number.

At this school, cheerleaders didn't wear their uniforms to school every day like they did at McKinley, so Lindsay and her entourage were dressed in jeans and tight-fitting tops that emphasized just how disproportionate her top half was to her bottom. Her dark, glittery eye makeup made her grey eyes shoot out like lasers and her freckles stand out even more against her pale cheeks. The way she folded her arms across her chest and pushed her cleavage up showed that she knew exactly how difficult it was for boys not to stare.

"I just wanted to let you know that we are _so_ sorry about what happened at the Dairy Queen," she drawled in her heavy accent. Even though he had only been away from it for a year, Sam wasn't sure he could get used to that accent again. Especially not since it seemed like every word directed at him in that drawl was aimed to wound. "We had _no_ idea they would just fall out like that. You must've mixed them too long."

Sam kept his eyes lowered and tried to politely shoulder his way between the girls to his locker. They parted slightly, allowing him to reach his locker, but still hovered tightly around him. He checked the number he had written on the back of his hand, waited until the numbers stopped floating, then tried spinning it correctly on the combination. He could feel the eyes burning into the back of his neck as his long fingers struggled with the dial. He screwed it up the first time, but the second time, with a warm blush crawling over his cheekbones, he got the damn thing open.

"We went back the next week to tell you how sorry we were," Lindsay continued, oblivious to the fact that he was trying to ignore her, or simply not interested. "But your manager said you quit. I hope we didn't run you out Sammy. I would just feel _so_ bad."

Sam dumped all the items he didn't need for class into his locker and used his back to thump it closed. He leaned his shoulder blades back against it with a sigh and closed his eyes. Lindsay and her puppets had him circled like sharks. He lifted his thin paper schedule to start trying to figure out where he needed to go in this crazy maze, but before he even caught a glimpse, Lindsay ripped it from his hand.

"Hey!" he protested, reaching for it as she turned her back to him. He may be soft spoken and polite, but he was getting pretty tired of her jerking him around.

"Oh hey look!" she purred, "We have first period English together with Mr. Borgalis. He's just fabulous. Tell you what Sammy, how bout I make it up to you and walk you to our first class?"

She held the schedule out to him and he snatched it back, afraid that she would pull it back or destroy it before he had the chance to reclaim it.

"I can make it myself, I really don't think—"

"No no, my pleasure," she smiled, slipping her hand inside his elbow. Her two friends fell in on his other side, and he figured he couldn't escape short of sprinting away and looking like an idiot. So instead he let her lead him down the hall.

Other students were dipping into classrooms left and right, and the hallway was quickly clearing out. But Lindsay kept tugging him further and further, past classroom after classroom until they finally passed the last door in the hall. A sinking feeling hit Sam full in the gut as they came to a set of doors leading out of the building.

"What are we doing?" he asked, his voice low and suspicious.

Lindsay shoved the door open. When his eyes adjusted to the bright light, Sam could tell exactly where they were. Not that he had been to this specific spot before, but every school had one. They were all the same. That tiny, hidden parking lot off the cafeteria just big enough for a garbage truck to pull in and out. That space where they lined up all the dumpsters, bulging with ripe trash bags and leaking thick cafeteria sludge. That space that reeked so badly you couldn't take one breath of it without getting light headed. The place where all the cool kids in every high school since the dawn of time disposed of the losers. Sam's eyes narrowed. He'd be damned if he was going to get thrown in a dumpster by three girls. Wasn't gonna happen.

"Why do you look so nervous, Sammy?" Lindsay said in that sickly sweet voice she only seemed to use when she was luring a fly into her web. "You should feel right at home. This _is_ where you live right?"

Sam bristled, feeling the muscles in his shoulders clench. He had never wanted to hit a girl so badly in his life. Lindsay smiled, seeing the reaction she could so easily produce in him. Her two friends were less confident than she was, glancing between each other, at the walls, at their shoes, at anything but Sam.

"We thought you could just do us all a favor and go back to the dumpster you crawled out of."

Her lips curled into a wicked smile, waiting for his response to her challenge. In a way, she reminded him of Santana. Santana who was constantly making fun of him. But somehow, Santana had never been cruel, and he knew that if anyone else ever tried to pick on him the way she did, she would have his back. This girl was something else entirely. He wondered if the old Quinn had ever treated people like this.

Apparently tired of waiting for a slap in the face that wasn't going to come, Lindsay pushed herself up onto her toes and braced her hands on his shoulders. Sam jerked back at the touch, but his back was already pressed to a set of lockers. Her lips pressed firmly against him in a kiss that was intended for his cheek, but, because she was so much shorter than him, instead landed on the line of his jaw.

"Well Sammy, I really do need to get to class. Wouldn't want my boyfriend to see you hitting on me like this. He would just be _so_ jealous."

As soon as she was gone, Sam whirled and drove his right fist into a locker with a grunt. It slammed into the metal grating so hard that it broke the skin on his knuckles, and he slumped to the floor, back to the locker, cradling his bleeding hand. Down the hall, he could hear the ringing of Lindsay's laughter. Careful to use his unbloodied hand, he ran his fingers through his hair, gently tugging at the ends. Why did his life suck? And when did it start to suck? Would it suck like this forever? He tried to picture himself at forty years old, lonely and wrinkled, friendless, delivering pizzas, drinking a beer, going to bed. His life sucked.

"Hey." A hand stuck out in his face. Sam gripped it with his left hand and allowed the good Samaritan to pull him to his feet. When he was upright again, he was face to face with Bobby Donahue.

Sam's lips pressed into a tight line. He was done putting up with shit today. If surviving at this school meant trucking through with his head down, that's what he would have to do. The last thing he needed was Bobby punching his face in for supposedly putting the moves on his bitch of a girlfriend. This girl was everywhere.

"I wasn't hitting on her dude," Sam said quietly, looking away.

"Yeah, I know."

His lips twitched as he tried to hold back his rage. He unconsciously curled and uncurled the fingers of his right hand, stretching them and testing to see how badly they were hurt. The last thing he wanted was to have to go home and tell his parents that he got suspended on the first day of school for punching a kid in the face. But he was done with the bullshit. Sam took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment to collect himself. Really, he was just tired.

"I'll tell Coach Woods I can't play quarterback. I dunno, I'll tell him my shoulder's bothering me or something," Sam said, opening his eyes. "Just call off your dogs."

Bobby snorted. Actually just about choked himself laughing. He clapped his hand down hard on Sam's shoulder, and Sam's fists tightened, ready for confrontation.

"Nah, bro. It's a fair fight. If you win it you win it. We'll see Friday night, but don't think I'm letting you pull that spot away from me. And Lindsay's not that bad, she's just really territorial. You're new. Just let her sniff you out."

Sam smirked. Maybe this tall, doughy, freckled kid who reminded him of Finn something fierce wasn't so bad after all.

"Come on, I'll show ya where your first class really is."


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

**Sorry for the delay. Busy week with a new job starting. Anyway, I focused most of my time and effort on Quinn here, so hopefully you like her. She's a bit dark here, and getting darker. It's always darkest before the dawn (or however that goes). There's a lot of football going on in Sam's part of the chapter, so if you don't like the sport, I apologize in advance. I did my best to describe what's going on, but if you really really can't picture it, YouTube "two point conversion trick" and that should give you the gist. Fun to come in the next chapter, but enjoy this one first! Please review. It makes me happy even when you tell me it isn't very good lol. **

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It's amazing the things you see and hear when nobody recognizes you.

Jacob Ben Israel was running around shoving a camera in everyone's face, shooting for his ridiculous back to school docudrama. Quinn trailed him quietly, hovering in the shadows of the hallways, leaning against a doorframe or a locker, floating, watching. She was a bit surprised that no one noticed her, but then again, when had anyone ever noticed her, really? Heads turned when she walked down the hall swaying her hips in that little red skirt, but had anyone ever noticed who she really was or how she was feeling? Ever?

The idea that a girl clad in all back with pink hair could be invisible in a relatively small school would be shocking if she wasn't acutely aware of how these things worked. The old Quinn would have never seen Q either. Those people—the Skanks, the druggies, the trailer trash, all the bottom feeders—had been lower than low, not even making it into the periphery of her vision when her eyes scanned the hallway. And why would they, when there were people who mattered? She guessed she was one of those people who didn't matter now.

But it totally had its perks. She got to observe what total idiots her former friends were in their natural habitats. Apparently, Mike Chang's mom hadn't decided where he was going to college yet or whether she would be feeding him the carrots or peas for lunch. Santana was, unsurprisingly, ready to leap right over Quinn's still warm corpse to be head cheerleader. Rachel Berry and Kurt Hummel, morons as they were, had no clue that Julliard didn't have a musical theater department. For all her whining about how tough it was to be her, apparently Rachel hadn't been gunning hard enough, or she would have had her schools already researched, selected, and visited. But keep spinning that web, sweetheart, everyone's caught in it.

The only one that produced a little pang somewhere inside Quinn's shriveled heart was Mercedes. Mercedes, the strong, proud, diva who had once declared that she was a Beyonce not a Kelly Rowland, had fallen for some melted fudgy lump of a manboy and bragged that he—not college, not Broadway, not a record deal, not that Grammy she always talked about—but _he_ was her future plans. Had all the mighty fallen this summer?

Quinn hadn't gone to school at all the first few days. She tormented her mother by insisting on staying in her room for almost the entirety of three full days. At first, the idea sounded great. She could sleep as late as she wanted, drink and smoke whenever she wanted, and see Rad whenever she wanted. But after three days of doing next to nothing, she realized that lying around all day was really boring. She tried seeing Rad to fill the hours, since he seemed to be the only other person in the world who didn't have anywhere to be during the day, but like every boy she'd ever known, once she gave him a little something something (and in this case a big something) it was all he could ever think about.

The few times she saw him, he spent all of his bleary-eyed efforts on trying to get in her pants. Long gone were the hours he would sit on the steps and sip vodka with her, listening to her talk about all the worries clouding her mind. Then, he had seemed to understand her so much better than all the people she had surrounded herself with before. Because no one understood him either. He had stripped off all the externalities, too. There was nothing pretty to look at there. No impressive job or expensive clothes. No comfortable place to live or flashy car or influential friends. Being Rad's friend and lover meant learning to tune into what was right there in front of you, and nothing more. That's what Quinn wanted for herself, and why she thought Rad got her.

But he had had that taste of what her body could offer now, and that was it. He was pushy now, he couldn't please her, and worse than both, he was boring. Boring and pathetic, and the only thing worse than Finn at sixteen begging to get his hands up her skirt was forty-two year old Rad begging for it. So she let the phone ring, she let texts go unanswered, and eventually they slowed to a trickle. She was truly alone.

The Skanks were all she had left, and for some reason beyond comprehension to Quinn, the Skanks went to school. Staying home was seriously lame when everyone else you knew had somewhere to be. Even All My Children could get old when Erica fails at an attempt to disown Kendall for the fifteenth time. So on Friday, she got herself up, got dressed without quite bothering to shower, and carted herself out the door by 6:30 to be at goddamn McKinley High by the start of the school day at 7:00. She definitely wouldn't be making a habit of this, but she would try it.

As it turned out, being in school without actually caring about school wasn't all that bad. In previous years, she would have been hauling her textbooks and notebooks around, hustling between classes to make sure she was there on time, and scribbling down notes to make sure she got down every word of what her teachers said, all while protecting her image as the head cheerleader and most popular girl in school. It was exhausting. But just wandering around the school, people watching, smoking, having a drink under the bleachers, tripping a teacher here and there . . . that was all pretty fun.

Santana was the first one to recognize her and actually speak to her. She was trying to be nice, Quinn could tell. She was trying to dig somewhere into that bitch of a heart she carried around to demonstrate to Quinn that she cared and wanted to help. But of course, she totally missed the mark. She just didn't get it. Nobody got it. She offered Quinn a bar of soap and a bottle of peroxide, as if scouring her exterior of all the color and grime and character it had accumulated over the last month would cleanse her of the burns and scars and smoke stains building on her soul.

That was always everyone's answer to everything. Back when she was a chubby little thing called Lucy and some mean kids at school were picking on her, it was "Come on, Lucy. Let's go buy some shoes. You have nice, slender little feet." When she lost thirty pounds, wore contacts, and dyed her hair but was still nervous about transferring to a new school for high school, it was the offer of a nose job. At Nationals, when she was distraught about the deterioration of her relationship with Finn, Santana and Brittany chopped off her hair. Mack dyed it pink when she felt hollow after sleeping with Rad. And now, in what was her best effort to be kind and understanding, Santana was offering a bath and another dye job. As if everything was pretty and pristine on the outside, everything would be better on the inside.

It was selfish of them, really. If she looked fine, they could pretend with an almost unburdened conscious that she was fine. Then no one had to feel guilty when something happened to her that they couldn't have seen coming. Isn't that always what they said when some quarterback class president offed himself? He was such a nice boy. So happy. So popular. They couldn't imagine why a boy with everything in the world going for him would do such a senseless thing. Of course they couldn't.

Maybe she had done it to herself. Well, probably. That hardened exterior she had built for protection meant that people were afraid of her. Or hated her. But mostly afraid of her. She didn't blame them really. She had chosen this path for herself, and it seemed like the biggest thing she had sacrificed in the pursuit of popularity and perfection was potential to have real friends who had the perceptiveness to see through all her bullshit, the patience to deal with her ups and downs, the backbone to stand up to her and tell her she was wrong when she needed it, and the heart to walk through it all with her. Sam had been all of those things, or at least was starting to be, when he ran off to be a damn saint somewhere else, probably for someone else. It didn't matter. She told herself over and over that he was nothing more than a hot body and cute lips, and that hot was exchangeable.

"Your friend stinks of soap, Quinn."

Quinn pushed her shades down the bridge of her nose a bit to glance over them at the approaching form of one Rachel Berry. Shuffling, awkward, hobbit-like Rachel Berry, who somehow managed to weasel her way into the subconscious of Quinn's ticket to royalty and teen stardom. Rachel looked uncomfortable isolating herself under the bleachers where no one could hear her scream, but Quinn didn't bother stepping out from the shadows to meet her. Rachel Berry was best treated like a roach, squashed quickly before it had a chance to scurry off into a crack in the flooring and make equally ugly and annoying babies.

"Hey Quinn," she started unsteadily.

Quinn snaked her right hand up one of the support beams under the bleachers and perched her left tightly on her hip. She was wearing sunglasses, but she hoped Berry could see the glare she was directing her way.

"Look Quinn, we . . . we were friends once," she stammered, unsure of the words coming out of her own mouth. Had they really been friends once? Maybe in Rachel's deluded, starving-for-acceptance brain, but Quinn wasn't so sure. "Maybe when you cut off all your hair last year, I thought it would solve all your problems. I should have said something."

Quinn's lips twitched.

"Maybe when you dropped out of society this summer and started dating that forty-year-old year old skater . . . maybe I should have said something. I—I'm sorry you're so sad Quinn."

She wanted to scream, wanted to shout that she wasn't sad. She wasn't the sad one. Rachel Berry was the sad one, the one who had nothing when Quinn had it all. Who was she to judge? Who was she to go around telling Quinn how she felt?

"I'm sad not seeing you in the choir room, Quinn. We would love to have you back in glee club whenever you're ready."

Rachel's confidence grew with every word she uttered while Quinn's slowly broke apart and shattered. Back when she was blonde and glossy-lipped and high-ponyed, Quinn had hundreds of friends. More friends than Rachel Berry could ever dream of having in her lifetime. And where were they? Either ignoring her or missing the problem completely. Finn Hudson, the guy she had spent her first year of high school with, the guy she always imagined herself marrying and settling down with, didn't even notice that she was missing. Really, he didn't notice that she existed at all. The girls she had formed the bond of unholy trinity with thought that a haircut would do it. Even Rad was done being sweet and understanding and sympathetic now that there was sex at stake. And here was Rachel Berry—the girl she had made fun of mercilessly for years, the girl who her boyfriend had cheated on her with—she was the one standing here, pinpointing the problem, looking for all the world in those melty brown eyes like she understood, and offering . . . . offering what?

Come back to the choir room. Come back to her friends. Come back to the room where she had been consistently pushed in the background, treated like a second class citizen, and asked to prop Rachel up in a way that no one had ever propped her up. Come back so that there was one more person to sway behind Rachel Berry and make her feel oh so special. For a brief moment, Quinn thought Rachel might actually care about her, but really, it was just another insult.

Quinn waited in raging silence until Rachel finally scuffled away then stalked towards the courtyard, looking for a piano to burn.

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Droplets of sweat slithered down the soaked clumps of blond hair plastered against Sam's forehead, dripping into his eyes and burning them blind. Under the heated glare of the field lights, his vision was blurry. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his line of sight before the next play started. All around him, the screaming masses in the bleachers were a blur.

Sam set up wide on the end of the line, ears straining for Bobby Donahue's count through the roar of the crowd.

"Set!"

The linemen dropped into their stances and the center palmed the ball. All the muscles in Sam's legs were twitching as he coiled himself tightly, ready to explode. He stole a quick glance at the scoreboard. Down seven with four minutes to go in the fourth quarter. Some miracle needed to happen in these last four minutes to salvage a win. They were playing decently, but not nearly well enough. This team was meant to contend for a Kentucky state championship, and they were losing by a touchdown in their home opener to a team that was mediocre at best. Sam dipped his face briefly to the ground and shook, sending the beads of sweat cascading to the ground.

"Green 18! Green 18!"

Eighteen was a passing route to a senior receiver named Kirkland, but green wasn't the designation, so the play call from the huddle was still on. A play where he was the primary receiver on a deep passing route downfield. He glanced up at the clock again. Four minutes to tie up the game, and more than sixty yards to go. And the play was to him. No pressure or anything.

"Hut!"

Hi eyes quickly darted to the crowd. His dad couldn't make it because he had to work late on a construction site, but his mom was there with Stevie and Stacy. Football didn't mean much to his mom or his sister, and they would tell him he did a great job whether they won or lost. But his father had raised Stevie exactly like he had raised Sam—to value sportsmanship, but to be a fierce competitor, to put his entire heart into everything he did, and to be disappointed when he lost something he had worked hard for. So while the girls were chatting away, probably about Stacy's first week of school, Stevie was at the edge of the bleachers, clutching the railing, bouncing up and down with excitement. Every muscle in Sam's body tensed, ready to spring.

"Hut!"

Sam burst from the end of the line, sprinting into action. The ten yards between him and the defensive back assigned to cover him disappeared in a flash, and with a stutter step faking towards the line, he was cutting back into the open field, leaving the confused d-back trailing behind. Sam knew he was free. There weren't many guys around who could match his speed step for step, so once he had the kid burned, all that was left to do was catch the ball and sprint for the goal line. But he felt trouble as soon as the ball left Bobby's hand. This ball was supposed to hit him right in stride thirty yards out. Coverage was nowhere in sight, so if it hit him in stride, it was six points on the board. But it was long. Way too long.

He pushed his legs as hard as they would go as the ball began to plummet. There was no way he was going to catch up to that ball and catch it in stride; his last chance was to dive. With one last long stride, he propelled himself forward, throwing himself towards the ball in a full horizontal dive. For the brief moment his outstretched body hung in the air, he thought he just might have a shot. He held his breath, begging for a few more inches, just a little more power from his legs, but the ball bounced off his fingertips as his body smashed into the ground.

The clock stopped on the incomplete pass, and the collective voice of the crowd groaned in disappointment. Bobby ran over to the sideline to get the next play from Coach Woods as Sam pushed himself up from the ground. He jogged back to his teammates. He felt the need to apologize to them, even though he knew there was nothing more he could have done to save that pass, but he bit his tongue as he noticed all of the linemen staring over at the sideline.

Coach Woods had Bobby by the facemask, yanking him within inches of Coach's own face, bristling with spittle.

"What the _hell_ was that, Donahue?" he said, pulling Bobby so hard there was nothing he could do to defend himself. His shoulders hunched over to prevent his neck from twisting. "He was wide fucking open! All you had to do was hit him in the hands and we tied this game up! How the hell did you miss that pass?"

Sam cringed. He'd been there before. It sucked. It sucked feeling like a loss was your fault, and it sucked even worse when that feeling was pretty much true. Bobby was having a rough night. He was completing less than fifty percent of his passes, most of the time throwing them behind the receiver or burning them too far. The arm strength was totally there, he just didn't have much accuracy or mobility. The offensive line was doing their best, but when you just sit in the pocket for thirty seconds, waiting for a receiver so wide open you're positive you can hit him, even the biggest, quickest, smartest linemen in the world can't save you.

Bobby was swaying back and forth, unable to control his body as the coach yanked him back and forth by the facemask, barking at him all the while.

"Despite your best efforts, we are going to win this game, goddamn it! Go sit your ass on the bench and watch!"

Sam watched as Bobby drifted dizzily towards the bench, trying to regain his bearings. He sat down with a thud and pulled his helmet off. Sam and the other offensive players stood in a huddle, shifting uneasily, wondering what happens next after your fearless leader gets struck down.

"Well don't just stand there like an idiot boy! Come in and get the goddamn play!"

Sam and his teammates looked around at each other.

"Evans! Goddamn it! Get the hell over here before I have to call a time out!"

Sam sprinted over before it was his facemask getting pulled around and took the play from his coach. The butterflies were playing their own game of full tackle football in his stomach. As bad as he felt for Bobby, who was turning out to be a pretty decent human being, this was the chance he had been waiting for. As nervous as he was on stage, either stripping or singing in front of people, this is what he lived for. He loved the lights and the crowd, the anxious feeling in your gut that meant a win or loss depended on your ability to lead your team down the field. He had a little under four minutes and sixty yards to make his mark on this shitty little town that wasn't much different than any of the other shitty little towns he'd lived in his entire life.

He jogged back out onto the field, huddled the team—now his team—and called the first play. He could see the nerves in their eyes, the nerves that only come from the desperation of losing to a team you're supposed to be beating royally. But the animation in his eyes and the confidence in his voice relaxed them. They broke out of the huddle, stepped up to the line, and hiked the ball.

Sam's first pass was a fifteen-yard line drive straight into Kirkland's hands for a first down. The clock stopped to change the markers, and Sam jogged over for the next play. He got a harsh slap on the shoulder pads from Coach Woods, which was the man's best attempt at praise. On the next play, he handed the ball off to a running back who ran for a four yard gain, and his next pass got seven yards and the first down. Time ticked off the clock as they marched down the field. Six or seven, sometimes fifteen yards at a time, they chipped away at the distance remaining between their line and the end zone. When they were just under twenty yards out, Sam hit Kirkland in the back corner of the end zone and the crowd went wild.

Sam pressed his eyes shut and released the breath he had been holding all the while the ball soared through the air. He leapt up and threw a fist in the air, much as he had when Quinn first put that tiny gold ring on her right ring finger. But before the gigantic impending smile could spread to its fullest limits across his face, his offensive linemen turned around and tackled him to the ground in a heaping pile of bulging, sweating, stinking teenagers. Fists pounded against his helmet and shoulder pads, making his head ring something fierce. If he didn't know any better, he would think these four guys were trying to beat the crap out of him; he knew from experience, though, that this was a lineman's way of showing affection. By the time skinny, gawky, pimply Kirkland ran back upfield and threw himself on the pile, his weight was so insignificant that, with his back pressed to the turf and his face full of lineman, Sam couldn't even feel it.

"Hey! Hey! Pay attention, goddamn it!"

Sam was starting to think his name was goddamn it, and if he wasn't careful, he'd start responding to it on the street. He pried his way out of the pile and waved drunkenly for a few steps before jogging over to his coach. Coach Woods poked those gnarled, spindly fingers through his facemask, gripped him, and pulled him close. His face was pressed right up against Sam's mask, and he blinked involuntarily.

"Stay out on the field with special teams," he whispered conspiratorially, his bushy black and grey eyebrows waggling against Sam's mask. "Take the snap, hold it for the kicker for just a second. Pull it away before he fakes the kick or you'll get your right hand kicked off. Circle around, look for Kirkland in the corner. Got it?"

Sam shook his head rapidly as the first bolt of fear and excitement shot through his stomach. This was beyond risky. They were down one point with less than a minute left on the clock. The extra point was all but a done deal. Ninety-nine coaches out of a hundred would kick the extra point, tie up the game, and go into overtime. But Coach Woods was a risk taker and a thrill seeker, and he was willing to go for the two-point conversion, even if that meant losing the game if the play failed. If it succeeded, they'd win the game right here and now, by one point, with no overtime, without their opponents ever getting to touch the ball again.

Sam jogged back onto the field with special teams, trying to look casual. The most important thing for a trick play to work was nothing looking amiss. He knelt down a few yard back from the line and held him hands out for the center to hit. Quarterbacks were always holders because they usually had great hands and rarely dropped the ball, so there was nothing unusual for him going out to hold for the kick.

He held his breath as the center hiked the ball. His long fingers wrapped around it, snatching it out of the air, and twisted it down point-first to stabilize it against the ground. The kicker started his run, and just as his leg drew back, he grabbed the ball and spun back.

His eyes scanned downfield quickly. The defense was fooled, but not badly enough. They were stumbling back from the line and scrambling to cover his receivers as they darted for the end zone. His eyes shot to Kirkland. Covered. Shit. Double covered actually. He glanced at his line to make sure it was holding well enough before looking to his secondary. Covered. The tight end was open enough but he had hands like cement and really was only in that position because he was 6'2 and could throw a good block. So he was out. The cracks in the line were beginning to deepen, and the other team's orange jerseys were starting to flood his vision. He risked one last look at the defense—all of the corners and even the linebackers had dropped back to cover the pass. Which meant he only had one choice left.

Tucking the ball securely under his right arm, he dashed for the outside of the line. If he could get around the line—which was quickly turning into a pile of bodies—he could probably make it the seven yards into the end zone. But with so few of his blockers left on their feet, it would be no small order. He tiptoed towards the end of the line, ready to dart the other direction at the first sign of danger; getting clipped now could mean getting tackled, which would mean the end of the game and a loss on the board. But all was clear as he sprinted towards the goal line.

With two yards left to the line, Sam met the other team's best player—a giant, hulking linebacker that had been riding Bobby's ass the entire game. He was quick and strong, probably forty pounds heavier than Sam, and had at least four sacks in the game, more than some linebackers would have all season. Most quarterbacks would slide to stop a play rather than risk getting injured by a brutal tackle. But there was no way around it this time; it was this play or nothing, so as iron man approached, he dropped his shoulder pads and rammed them as hard as he could into the kid's ribs. The guy was like a brick wall. He barely budged an inch. His arms wrapped around Sam's hips and started pulling him to the ground.

Everything was moving in slow motion, and that yard meant everything. It wasn't just about winning a game at this point. That's what he told himself, but that wasn't it. Not really. It was about winning acceptance. Winning a spot in this place that he would call his home until the economy changed or the wind turned. Winning over people who would like him. A group of friends who would have his back when he didn't have the strength to stand on his own. Winning back his happiness, and winning smiles from his mom and dad when they saw his own. There was so much more than a game to lose, so he pushed. Grunting and groaning against the pain and the fatigue, he pushed until he felt the pressure start to break, and a world of worry gave way as he tumbled across the goal line.

Sam didn't hear or see anything but his family in the stands. His little brother was leaping up and down, high-fiving everyone around him who realized there was a little person standing next to them. His eyes were as bright as they had been the last Christmas morning before they no longer had the money to get him presents. His mom and sister had decided to pay attention at some point and were jumping and clapping almost as much as Stevie. Stacy was waving a little red and blue pom pom. No one else in the crowd had any idea who he was, but they were cheering for him too.

As he started to come down from his high, his eyes lowered from the stands to the sidelines. On the bench, Bobby Donahue sat looking utterly deflated, and behind him, his girlfriend Lindsay stood with her arms folded neatly across her chest.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

**Happy Glee Day loves! In honor of Glee today, and of Sam getting wild and naked in the next episode, I give you smut. **

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Brock and Sharif and the guys were totally right. As the weeks of September passed by and summer crawled into fall, Sam's confidence grew. Every minute he spent on stage, working his body to the roar of a frenzied crowd, transformed him into a version of Sam Evans he had never met before.

"Like a fuckin' butterfly breakin' out of its fuckin' cocoon," Brock had put it, and Sam supposed that metaphor was as good as any, considering he was stripping his clothes off every night.

Sam worked at the club four nights a week. Those days were long. School by 7:15, football practice from 3:00 to 6:00, get to Stallionz by 9:00 for a 10 o'clock show, home by 1:00, passed out in bed by 2:00, and back up in the morning, forcing down a cup of coffee he hated the taste of just to get through the day. But over all, the hours were so much shorter and the money so much better than working at Dairy Queen. Not to mention it was a lot less disgusting to scrub glitter and sweat and vodka off your skin than melted ice cream and shards of Butterfingers. On the whole, he was better rested and far more content that his time was being spent more efficiently.

And his self-esteem was soaring. Sam had always battled his demons. One night, as he was on his knees, rolling his abs and thrusting his hips in a pair of briefs so tight and so transparent that they didn't hide a thing, he thought back to sophomore year at McKinley when he was supposed to be performing in Rocky Horror. He had been totally confident when he took the role. After all, he worked out all the time, ate healthily, and kept his abs hard enough to cut glass. But as it got closer and closer to the day he would have to put on those tight gold shorts, he started to second guess himself. When no one was looking, he would pull his shirt up and examine his torso at the gym, pinching at what he thought were rolls of fat. He ate less, worked out more, and pushed himself towards the brink of what was probably, in hindsight, an eating disorder. Whatever Mr. Schue's motives for pulling him out of the show were, it was probably a good thing that he ended up not going any further with the role. Sam had ironclad will power and a skewed image of himself, and between the two, he probably would have made himself sick.

Even when he had sent that little devil on his shoulder telling him he was fat and ugly and stupid back to hell, he was still never the smoothest of guys. He was socially awkward, nervous around people, and constantly trying to tuck away any glimpses of his personality that he thought people wouldn't like. He let Finn shove him around on the field instead of pushing for the quarterback spot he knew he deserved, blushed when he stuttered and stumbled over words in class, and hid in the background of their group numbers in glee club. He had moments of abandon—almost exclusively for the purpose of winning Quinn's heart—when he didn't care if he was making a fool of himself. But those moments were few and far between.

He didn't think Miss Pillsbury would have ever recommended stripping as an antidote for his shyness and low self-esteem, but he was doing what he had to do, and gone was that scared little boy who closed his eyes when he sang so he wouldn't be able to see if people were laughing at him.

Bobby Donahue's career as a quarterback was dead and buried. Sam was too talented, too competitive, and most importantly, he loved football too much to give up that piece of success just so that some kid he barely knew could feel good about himself. He felt bad for Bobby; he really did. Bobby had managed to fight out a spot for himself as a defensive end, and in the last three games (and they won all of them) he had done a pretty damn good job of it. It just wasn't nearly as glamorous as being the quarterback. You didn't get to lead your team down the field with time ticking off the clock. You didn't get to call the plays. You didn't have the weight of the game on your shoulders and the complete faith of your teammates. And you weren't considered by the newspapers, the community, your family, your friends, and people who never even met you before, the leader. So for as bad as Sam felt for everything Bobby had lost, he knew he won it fairly, and he just couldn't let it go. Bobby spoke to him sparingly at school, and they weren't going to be best friends anytime soon, but there was no hostility between them.

Things were going better at school, too. He didn't have any really close friends like he had at McKinley in the glee club, but the popularity of being a star quarterback meant that lots of people were anxious to be around him. He avoided the popular bitches group—he still didn't want to be that person—but they were all friendly with him. All but Lindsay, who was silent and seething. The balance of power had shifted. He was popular enough at school now that if she was openly rude to him, shoved him into a locker, or tried to lead him home to a dumpster, she would take some serious hits to her own popularity. But it didn't mean she had to be nice, and it didn't mean she couldn't plot his demise. It just meant she couldn't attack in the middle of the hallway. And Sam was fine with that. As long as all the girls were trying to flirt with him and all the guys were high-fiving him, he could deal with one jealous teenaged girl.

At home, his family was getting close to comfortable again. His dad's wages at the construction site paid the rent, and Sam's stripper bills put food on the table and paid for any extras they needed. To avoid his parents asking too many questions, Sam usually just took care of things on his own whenever he saw a problem. When Stevie and Stacy's clothes started getting shabby, he took them to the mall himself to buy new jeans and dresses. When the TV stopped working, he replaced it himself without mentioning it to his parents. Of course they noticed, and they thanked him for it, but all they knew was that he was giving them money for food; they didn't know how much extra there was.

It was hard to believe that all this good could come from something as shameful as selling his body for money, but his life was changing, and he loved it.

Sam pulled the headphones out of his ears as he straightened his tie in the mirror. He had felt a bit guilty spending some of the money on himself, but the forty dollar iPod from the pawn shop helped him get pumped up for the stage. It was practically a business expense, if you thought about it. He tightened the knot of his tie, ran his hands through his hair a few times, and set the black felt fedora on top of the sandy blond mess. He didn't love the hat, but Sharif said it completed the look with the white button down dress shirt and black slacks. He grabbed an umbrella and headed for the pitch black center of the stage.

When his eyes adjusted to the dark, he could see the eager faces in the crowd. Over the last few weeks, he had developed quite a following. There would always be bachelorette parties and girls' nights out for sorority sisters and the recently divorced; those faces he would see once, deliriously drunk and shoving money in his underwear. But there were also the women who came religiously. Not necessarily every night he was onstage, but every Tuesday, or every Saturday, whenever they could get there. Sam flashed a grin as he noticed a pair of familiar dark eyes staring out from the bar—his biggest fan.

He tipped the hat down low over his eyes and rested the steel point of the umbrella against the ground, tapping his heel as the heavy beat of Umbrella kicked in. When the lights flashed on, he tossed the hat out into the crowd and the room erupted. He rewarded them with the cocky, lopsided grin that was becoming the staple of his act (besides his abs, of course). He immediately loosened the tie and let the girls in the front row ruffle his hair so he looked like the morning after a drunken one night stand. He spun and rolled his hips to the beat, using the umbrella as a makeshift pole. With lots of off-stage work with Brock and the other guys, his dancing was getting much better, and he knew all the hip thrusting, ab crunching moves that would get wallets out of purses.

He sprung the umbrella open and held it over his head just as Sharif turned on the water to the hose and sprinkler they had strung up overhead. The ladies went wild as he spun the umbrella and the water bounced off in all directions, spraying the crowd. With one hand, he pulled off the tie and strung it between his legs before slinging it over his shoulders to be used later. In one swift move, he closed the umbrella, sent it flying off into the wings, and slid to his knees of the slick, wet stage. The water spraying down from above—thankfully luke warm—soaked through the white shirt and plastered it to his skin, revealing the ripples of his chest and abs, and nipples hard with the heat of the performance. He leaned back on his knees so that the water soaked his slacks as well and made them cling in all the places that would earn him money.

When Sharif turned off the water and Sam rose to his feet, his body was dripping and the women in the audience were staring, in near silence as the music thumped, lips slack. He touched his fingertips to his belt buckle teasingly and let his hand slide down over his crotch. He wasn't hard, but he could feel a twinge there, and if he were alone in his room right now instead of on a stage in front of a couple hundred women, he might allow those fingers to linger there a little longer. Instead, he slipped his fingertips in between the buttons on his shirt, gripped, and pulled. Buttons flying everywhere, he ripped the sopping shirt away from his body, and the ladies screamed.

Clad in only a pair of slacks and dress shoes, he ran his hands through his hair and shook, sending water flying and leaving his hair a wet, electrocuted mess. He strutted over to the edge of the stage and locked eyes with a pretty blonde sorority girl in the front row. She was curvy, and her hair color definitely came from a bottle, but if he squinted, in the right light she sort of looked a little bit like Quinn. Shooting her a wicked grin, he slipped the tie off his shoulders and laced it around the back of her neck. He gave her a gentle tug, and all her friends cheered and helped her up onto the stage.

Once she was on the stage, Sam gripped her around the waist and pulled her up into his arms. She giggled and wrapped her legs securely around his hips, her arms bracing around his neck. He tucked one arm under her butt and the other around her lower back as he pressed her tight to his near-naked body. He bounced his hips to hers in time with the music, and when she groaned as their groins made flush contact, he realized for the first time that she was really, really turned on.

Letting the music carry him, he knelt slowly and eased her onto her back on the stage. He put a hand on either side of her face to support his weight and rolled his body against hers, abs constricting and releasing, hips jutting. Droplets of water from his hair and his eyelashes dripped down and sizzled where it landed on her skin. Her pupils were dilated with lust. The crowd was roaring all around them, but when Sam looked down at this pretty blonde on her back with her legs spread, all he could think about was that hot summer day next to the pool, when Quinn was wearing that snug little white bikini, soaking wet with water from the pool and the moisture her body had produced. Ever so slightly, Sam rubbed against her. She was wearing a billowy skirt, and from the audience's vantage, they couldn't see her panties, but Sam could. They were seriously wet. And he was hard.

Sam stood and helped the girl back down to the floor before he ended up pulling her panties to the side and fucking her on stage and unbuckled his belt. The audience was completely engaged, and he felt bad for whoever was dancing after him, because the green carpet of cash on the stage was growing thicker. He was acutely aware of the erection he was sporting as he unzipped the slacks and pushed them down from his hips, but in the heat of the moment, he felt no shame. He was on stage, he knew he was hot, and he had a couple hundred pairs of eyes and an equal number of wrinkled dollars to prove it.

He quickly rid himself of the slacks and the shoes, leaving him in only a tiny pair of black spandex briefs that barely covered half of his ass and did nothing to hide his hardness. He slowly peeled the material back until his cock sprung free. The collective voice of the audience gasped and wailed like a lover. He let the briefs spring back, pinning his length against his lower abs so just the head was showing. Licking his lips and leaving them parted and panting, he slipped his hand into his underwear, touching himself gently.

When he looked out over the audience, thighs were clenching and unclenching, bottoms were scooting back and forth uncomfortably over barstools, and fingers were trying to brush discretely over hardened nipples. Near the bar, his dark eyed lady was sipping at a martini and toying with the zipper on her leather jacket.

His eyes slid closed and his head fell back. His skin was so hot that it felt like his fingertips were burning. He laced his thumb and middle finger around his shaft and slid his fingers slowly along its length, letting the pressure in his gut build. He never stopped to think that half the female population of Georgetown, Kentucky was getting an eyeful of seven inches of thick, teenage dick, or the fact that they would probably all go home and touch themselves to that thought later tonight. He was too deep in the moment, too deep in his own pleasure and theirs, to care. His balls tightened, and he kept stroking evenly with the music until the song ended and the lights blacked out. The crowd, waiting desperately for the moment of his release, groaned painfully.

Sam drew in a deep breath to steady his racing heart and clambered down the back steps to the stage. When he was out of sight, he leaned his shoulders against the cool, concrete wall, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

"Jesus, Sam!" Randi shouted, rushing up to him.

"Too much?"

"No! No, it was . . . damn boy! See? I knew when I first saw you that there was a _freak_ in there waiting to be uncaged! You even got _me_ hot and bothered, and I've seen it all!"

Randi shoved a giant stack of cash at him. He would have to count it, but it was way thicker than anything he had made before.

"Keep it up, baby. You're gonna be a big, big star!"

Sam smiled. He was really starting to think this was the best decision ever.

"What are you going to do with that sweetheart?" a sultry voice stopped Sam in his tracks as he headed back to the locker room. He knew before he even turned to look that it was her. The dark eyes from the bar. He felt a throb in his groin as he recalled the countless times those eyes undressed and devoured him, always hungry for more. He knew she would come to him at some point; the question was when.

He turned and leaned against the doorframe. She was sexy in a womanly, adult way. She had thick, dark hair, straight and coarse like a horse's mane, highlighted with caramel. Her skin, tanned a deep bronze, showed signs of age around the mouth and eyes, but her eyes, deep chocolate and framed with heavy lashes, were alive and intense. She wore makeup on her eyes and lips, but it was neat and professional. Her body was much thicker than the slim, almost boyish high school girls Sam was used to, but she had ample cleavage on display, dusted with freckles and aching to be touched.

"Do with what?" he asked, his confusion genuine.

In response, her eyes raked down his body until they came to rest on the not-so-discrete erection still straining at the black spandex briefs.

"Oh! Umm," Sam mumbled, the blush rising in his cheeks. He maybe a lady killer, but it was a recent development, and for all that, he was still a virgin. The dark-eyed woman moved closer. Close enough that the silk of her blouse was brushing against his bare abs and he could smell the woody musk of her perfume.

"Why don't you let me take care of that for you," she offered coyly, drawing a manicured nail down the length of his jaw. He shuddered, nerves mixing with the pleasure dripping in her voice.

"What, um, what do you mean?"

"Take me to the back and we can talk about it."

Sam paused for a minute, but his brain was too fogged to really think, so he nodded and led her towards the string of tiny rooms in the back he never thought he would use. There were already moans and screams coming from two of them, so Sam chose the quietest one on the end and tried the knob. Unlocked. He held it open for the dark-eyed woman, and she stepped past him, surveying the surroundings.

It was small, with barely enough room for the twin-sized bed covered with just a sheet, the cracking leather armchair, and a chest. Sam knew from snooping around the rooms before that the chest contained condoms of all shapes, sizes, and colors, an assortment of toys, and, since Randi insisted on it, hand sanitizer. One wall of the room was a full wall mirror.

The woman dropped her purse and jacket on the chair and dug into her pocket. She produced a fifty-dollar bill, which he held in front of her under the light for him to examine. The slight smile on her lips was mirrored by the smirk in her eyes.

"What, um, what do I have to do for that?" He hoped he didn't sound as nervous as he felt.

She laid the bill down on top of the chest so that it laid, flat and obvious, where he could still see it. She sauntered up to him, swaying her rounded hips, full of self-awareness that only age could produce. Backing him up to a wall, she ran her hand up the back of his neck, sending tingles through him, and laced her fingers into his hair. Tugging him down gently so that her wet, glossy lips could press flush to his ear, she whispered, "_All you have to do is come in my mouth_."

Sam's lips fell open and he dragged in a sharp breath to steady himself. He had almost wasted fifty dollars by exploding right then and there. No one had ever talked to him like that before—so dirty and so direct—and it made him throb so hard it was a struggle not to rub himself against the soft belly he was pressed up against. There was a vague notion in the back of his mind that this was wrong, so so wrong, but he was in no position to think straight with all the blood rushing from his brain to his dick.

"Can I take that as a yes?" she purred.

Sam nodded in a daze, his tongue snaking out to wet his lower lip.

"Mmm, those lips baby," she moaned, running her thumb over them, her eyes clouding with lust. "Those lips were made for sin. Maybe next time I can convince you to use them."

He had no idea what she was talking about, but he was really too drunk with anticipation to entertain coherent thoughts.

Her open mouth pressed to his collarbone as her hands slid down the backs of his briefs, cupping his muscular cheeks and squeezing firmly. Her lips wasted no time seeking out his nipple and sinking her teeth down into it, tugging and nipping until it turned a ruddy, swollen red. She trailed her tongue down the line of his abs as she sank to her knees, looking up at him with a mischievous grin. Those dark eyes locked on his as she palmed his erection through the only shred of fabric left between them. Sam's body jolted involuntarily and his head thumped back against the wall. Every muscle in his body tensed.

"Shhh, baby, easy," she murmured as she slowly stroked him, as if he were a colt learning to ride for the first time.

He kept his eyes pressed shut and his head back against the wall, trying hard to relax. Her fingertips slipped into the waistband of his briefs and slid them down the corded muscles of his thighs. The slightly cooler air felt good against his hot skin and helped keep some of the pressure at bay. When he felt something hot and wet touch the engorged, painfully sensitive head of his cock, his eyes snapped open and he nearly lost it. This sexy, middle-aged stranger, who had just offered him real money to give him his first ever blowjob, was on her knees, her hand wrapped around his cock, lips locked onto him, looking up at him with the eyes of the devil.

"Mmm, that's a good boy," she offered as his toes uncurled and his shaky fingers clawed through his hair. "Let mama taste that hot young cock."

Sam whimpered as she gave his shaft slow, lazy strokes and licked and sucked at the head. He had never felt something so intense before, so good. Her hand slid around to grip the back of his thigh as her lips pressed lower and lower down on him. He bit into his lip hard to keep himself from groaning. And to keep himself from coming too soon and ending the most incredible feeling he had ever experienced in his life. He risked a glance down, saw her lips with that pretty pink gloss stretched wide to accommodate him, her nose buried against the trim patch of dark blond hair. He groaned and slammed his head back again. There was no way he could watch _and_ hang on.

When she had taken him fully, her own need set in, and she abandoned treating him gently and seductively. The hunger took over. She slid her left hand down her jeans and her panties and used the other to hold him steady as she bobbed on his cock. The sudden change in pace made his heart race and his legs quiver. He reached down gingerly to touch her hair. He wanted more than life itself to grip her hair and hold her on him until the orgasm ripped through him, but even in the sex induced delirium he wasn't that person. So instead, he locked his fingers in his own hair as she drove him towards the brink of explosion.

"Ma'am?" he whimpered, his voice verging on childish. "Ma'am? I can't. _I can't_."

She pulled off of him and stared up at him with clouded, lust-filled eyes as she jerked him rapidly.

"Come on baby, come for me. Come for mama."

He stared, fixated, at that spot between her legs where her fingers were plunging away. He closed his eyes as he felt himself tipping towards the edge, and for a fleeting moment, he saw a flash of blonde hair and honey brown eyes and strawberry chapstick and . . . _fuck_. Her lips wrapped around him almost desperately as he felt the rush of his orgasm breaking over him. She moaned over him and made these little yelping noises as her own legs started to shake.

As the orgasm subsided, Sam's legs weakened and he slid his back down the wall until he was sitting with the dark eyed lady between his legs. She wiped her mouth, but the smirk never left her eyes.

"Like that baby?"

Sam was trembling too hard to answer, but he managed a nod.

"You taste so fresh."

"That was so, umm . . . you're so incredible," he stammered. "I don't even know your name."

"And you don't need to," she winked. "_Sammy_."

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Sam closed the door quietly behind him and set his keys down on the table, rubbing his eyes in the darkness. Most nights, he would turn on the little light over the sink and sit down to finish up some homework, but tonight he was so spent that all he wanted to do was flop onto his bed and plummet into the most blissful sleep he'd ever experienced. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw his mom sitting at the kitchen table in near darkness.

"Mom? What are you doing up?"

"Open your wallet please."

"What? Why?"

He tried to look shocked, and he was pretty sure the fear of being caught was helping. Sam knew exactly why. Unless she was searching for the fake ID, which he doubted, this had to do with the approximately four hundred dollars in cash he had stuffed in there. He wasn't a total idiot. He always made a pit stop at the creepy change machine outside the 711 to turn his ones into some twenties, but still, it was a lot of cash.

"Just . . . just let me see it Sam."

He dug into his pocket and pulled his wallet out, setting it down on the kitchen table in front of her. She was calm as she unfolded it and pulled out the money, making a deliberate pile on the table as she counted. His mom, well both of his parents, actually, were scariest when they were calm and quiet.

"Samuel Evans," she started slowly, looking up at him from the table, "If you're dealing drugs, so help me God I'll pull you out of school and teach you myself. You'll never leave my sight again until you're forty-five."

_Shit shit shit. This is bad. Not good. Mission abort_.

"Mom! I'm not dealing drugs! I can't believe you would think that. You know me." The hurt in Sam's voice and in his eyes were only partially from the sting of realizing that his mother didn't trust him. Mostly it was a result of the fact that he probably didn't deserve to be trusted anymore.

"Where did you get all this cash?"

"From work! I just got back from work!"

"You used to get paid in checks, Sam, remember? You used to endorse them and then your father and I would cash them."

_Shit. Think_.

"Well, uhh, some of it is tips, and uhh, yeah I mean, most of it is from umm, so I opened my own bank account cuz it would be easier I thought, like easier if I just cashed them myself and so I opened my own account. Yeah."

He looked up slowly to see how that was sticking. She seemed to be pondering, which was a small victory in itself.

"Sammy," she stood, taking his face in her hands, voice softening. His mother was always one for worrying to death over him and loving him way too much. "Listen to your mama for just a minute, ok?"

He blinked at her then lowered his eyes and nodded. His mom had this way of holding him prisoner when she needed him to listen, like if she held his face in place he couldn't possibly escape, and therefore he would hear her better. Or something like that. She started doing it when he was little, and he hated it because she would smush his face up into a pudgy wrinkle and grin at his too-big-for-his-face lips. He teared up once over it, and for that he had gotten his face smushed into her chest for half an hour, so he learned to cope.

"Sam, I know you think you're helping. You _are_ helping. But baby, whatever you're doing . . . you are so much more important to us than money. You understand that right?"

Sam felt himself starting to chew at the corner of his lip as his mom forced him to meet her gaze. He hoped he didn't look as guilty as he felt.

"Sometimes people get carried away, baby, and in trying to be comfortable, they start to treat money like it's more important than family. So whatever you're doing for that money, Sam, you better be safe, because I love you too much to see you hurt yourself."

Sam felt deflated. His mom had a way of doing that. She was the only person in the world who could manage to make you feel like shit by telling you that she loved you more than life itself.

"Honest, mom, it's just the money from the bank," he mumbled, feeling his energy sucking out of him and hoping she would let it go soon. "I opened my own bank account so I could cash my checks, just like I told you. This is all my check money from the last pay cycle. Can I please go to bed? I'm really tired."

His mom examined his face for another long moment, searching for those age old signs of a Sam Evans lie, but he was too tired to even look guilty. She sighed and her shoulders slumped, the signal that she, too, was tired and would let the issue go, at least for tonight. She pushed up onto her toes to kiss him on the head, then released his face.

Sam stuffed his hands into his jean pockets and shuffled out of the kitchen. He was exhausted, and that was enough bullet dodging for one night.

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**Now for the bad news. It takes me time and effort to write, and while I truly enjoy it, a big part of why I love writing here is the feedback from others. My last chapter had 120 readers and 2 reviews, so I'm hereby imposing a 5 review minimum. I won't write a new chapter until I get 5 reviews. I think that's sufficiently low to be fair to all of us. **


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

**Warning: Extremely graphic smut. Children, get lost now.**

**Warning 2: I have no idea if this is good, and I'm sure there are a million typos, but I want it out of my hands, so I'm going to post it, and I'll fix any problems later. Hope it doesn't suck!**

**Hey everyone, thanks for the reviews (that I kinda forced) on the last chapter. It made me really happy to see what you all had to say about it. I think I'll keep the reserve at five for this chapter as well. That seems low enough that it's not too much of a burden on anyone. Anyway, this chapter features both Quinn and Sam, and things start getting a little crazy. All shit hits the fan in the very next chapter, so keep following along! Enjoy!**

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The twiggy, dark haired freshman gasped for air as Quinn wrenched her from the toilet bowl by her ponytail. The shivering little creature's eyes were wide and terrified, and toilet water dripped from her eyelashes down her cheeks. She looked like a baby deer that had carelessly wandered into the path of a big rig and didn't know if her chances of survival were better if she bolted or froze.

"Give us your lunch money," Quinn growled.

"Yeah! We're hungry and we need something to barf back up."

The girl was still paralyzed and made no movements except for the shivers of fear.

"Now!" Quinn barked, giving her ponytail another yank and shoving her face back towards the toilet.

The girl yelped and her hand shot towards her pocket, fingers fumbling with the change. She ripped some money out of her pocket but was shaking so hard that the quarters and dimes shot all over the floor. Sheila waved her knife in the little doe girl's face, causing her to panic and wail.

"No! Wait!" she fell to her hands and knees, trying desperately to scoop all the change back together. She collected it in her fist and held it up to Quinn, who pulled her upright by her hair.

"You're so mean!" she quivered, shoulders shaking in her ridiculous Rachel Berry look-a-like sweater.

"Do you wanna know what mean is?" Quinn teased in a low voice. The girl's eyes went wide as saucers as Quinn's fist tightened around her ponytail.

"Quinn, what the hell are you doing? Seriously, stop!"

Quinn dropped the freshman, who crumpled into a heap on the floor before scampering out of the stall and towards the door, leaving her lunch money scattered on the bathroom floor. She spun towards the offending voice. Puck? Seriously? She hadn't seen him since . . . well since Nationals probably. And that felt like a lifetime ago. Quinn smirked at herself in the bathroom mirror, smudging at the makeup at the corners of her eyes.

"What?" she asked, not giving him the courtesy of looking at him. "Offended that somebody at this school is a bigger badass than you?"

"Oh please, Quinn. Give up the act. You forget I know you. Get the hell out of here," he waved off her Skanks when he noticed them all circling around, watching. They slinked away like scolded kittens. "You forget I know you, and I know this is all just a game to you. How many people can you shock today? How many people will be offended or disappointed today? I know how the game works."

"Whatever, Puck," she mumbled, applying a fresh coat of black lipstick from the little pumpkin covered tube. "I fucked you once. That doesn't make you my pastor or my shrink. Don't act like you know me. And get out of my face."

She stormed past him but before she could reach the bathroom door he caught her by the upper arm, his fingers digging into her skin. She spun and raised her hand to slap him, her nostrils flaring like a tiger ready to attack.

"Jesus, Quinn," Puck breathed, dropping his hand away from her arm. "Why are you so . . . that skater dude didn't do anything to you did he?"

"I'm not a fucking victim, Puck! So stop treating me like one! This is my decision. _Mine_."

"Okay, okay. Jeez. I'm sorry. Just . . . wait a second, okay?"

"What do you want Puck?"

"I wanna take you to see somebody."

"I don't have time for this," she muttered, but found herself following him out of the girls' bathroom and down the hall anyway. "I've gotta meeting with the Skanks on the roof. We're gonna throw a ketchup covered tampon at the marching band."

Puck didn't answer as he stopped in front of the open door of a classroom, ushering her inside.

"You're back," Quinn stated, trying to keep the surprise out of her voice.

She knew Shelby was back in Ohio, obviously. The whole moving in down the street from the biological mother of her adoptive daughter took care of that. But what the hell was she doing here, at McKinley? Was she specifically trying to torture Quinn? Shelby had been the show choir director at Mt. Carmel. Technically, that meant she was a teacher, but all she really did all day was work on song arrangements, choreograph routines, and drill her poor whimpering children into show choir machines. She had no place at McKinley. She had no place in Quinn's life.

"Yeah, I went to New York," Shelby started. "Thought I'd do it all, the whole working mother thing. But when I was in rehearsal, even performing, I couldn't stop thinking about Beth. How I could miss her milestones, ya know? Her first steps, her first words, the first time she—"

"_I get it_," Quinn snapped.

What was this woman trying to do? Rub salt in the wound? Wasn't enough that she had taken her perfect, baby daughter? Wasn't it enough that Beth would grow up calling her mama? Now, she had to brag about everything she got to experience as Beth's mother that Quinn would never get to experience.

"So, when I got this job offer," she continued, unfazed, "I couldn't refuse. I've missed so many firsts in Rachel's life. I'm not about to do that with Beth."

"Neat story. I'm late for a meeting on the roof."

She didn't need to listen to anymore of this. She didn't give a shit about Shelby or what she was doing with her life. As long as her baby was safe and loved and cared for, Shelby meant nothing to her.

"Quinn, wait. Just listen to her," Puck begged, the first hint of sympathy and worry for her creeping into his voice.

Shelby stepped into the path between her and the doorway, trying to force her attention.

"Look, since the day I gave Rachel up for adoption, I've been walking through life, searching for her face everywhere I go. Imagining what she's doing, what she may be like. I don't want you to go through what I went through. Part of me is back here because I want you to get to know Beth. I want you to be a part of her life."

Quinn's ears perked up. She tried to prevent the excitement from showing in her eyes, but she could feel the corners of her lips twitching.

"When do I get to see her?" she asked quietly, waiting for the trap to spring into place.

Shelby paused, surveying her. "Are you ok? What's going on with you? Are you even in glee anymore?"

And spring it did. Of course. Of course Shelby wanted something. Nothing was ever free. Her dad taught her that.

"Did you come here just to torment me with the thought of seeing my daughter?"

"I want you to be a part of Beth's life," her eyes roamed the length of Quinn's body, "But not like this. If you're really serious about Beth, you'll clean up your act."

The anger rose in Quinn's chest. Lately, it seemed like absolutely everyone had something to say about what she should be doing with her life. And everyone had their own point of leverage to use against her. It was all about bargaining power, her dad always told her, and right now, Shelby was dangling the only carrot in front of her face that really mattered.

"You think you can tell me what to do just because you signed a couple of papers?" Quinn raged, her voice starting to shake. "You're _not_ her mom! _I'm_ her mom. _Me_! So you can pretend all you want, but that is something you are _never going to be_."

Quinn stalked out of the room, heart pounding, adrenaline racing. Throwing tampons at the band had seemed like a pretty stellar idea before, but now, it was way too mild to satisfy her mood. She needed to do some real damage.

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Quinn blinked her eyes slowly open as a horrific screeching pierced her consciousness. The school day had ended over an hour ago, and she had spent that time in peace and quiet in the stairwell with a cigarette dangling between her lips. She had closed her eyes at some point to reflect on the pretty shitty day she'd had and must have fallen asleep. The cigarette rolling in her lap and the ash marks on her clothes confirmed her suspicions.

She pushed her weary bones up from the floor and followed the sound of the wailing cat to Shelby Corchran's choir room, where Sugar Motta was attempting scales. Quinn leaned against the doorframe and watched with amusement. After insulting Shelby's nasally singing voice and blaming her self-diagnosed Asperger's, Sugar pranced out of the room, off to torture someone else with her insipid personality, no doubt.

"She's hopeless ya know," Quinn offered. It was a small olive branch—offering Shelby the opportunity to vent over the impossible task of making Sugar Motta a champion singer if she wanted to.

"Nobody's hopeless."

She was sure that was directed more at her than at Sugar, but she was too tired to fight.

"What happened to you Quinn?" she asked softly. Shelby was looking at her like she actually cared what the answer was. "Sorry, I know what happened to you. The same thing that happened to me when I gave Rachel up. I went with the Regis Philbin tattoo and the Sinead O'Connor haircut."

Quinn snickered, unable to keep the smile from her lips. She tried to picture Shelby without her long, thick mane of chestnut hair, and in its place a bare, stubbly skull. She may just have the cheekbones to pull it off, but still, she must've looked like some guerilla war combatant. "Must've looked like crap."

"It was a disaster," Shelby agreed. "But eventually, I realized that no matter how much it hurt me, _I did right by my daughter_. That's the real test of motherhood, Quinn. How much of yourself will you give up for them."

Quinn's eyes squinted. She had a feeling she knew what Shelby was getting at—if she wanted to be a good mother to Beth, if she wanted to be a part of her daughter's life, what she would have to sacrifice was not just a part of herself, but all of herself. She would have to live a life of pretending. Pretending that she was perfect and pretty and happy and God-fearing. She would have to pretend that everything was right in her world so that everything could be right in her daughter's world. She had been raised to wear that mask, to keep inside everything she might actually be feeling, so that all the world saw was a happy, healthy, well-adjusted girl. Good job mom and dad.

"Yeah well I'm not going back to being that girl. Little Miss Blonde! Little Miss Perfect!" she snarled at Shelby.

But Shelby only smiled at her as if she were a small child who needed to be walked through a basic concept. "Quinn, were you ever really that girl? Would that kind of girl ever get pregnant in the first place? Do you really expect me to think _this_ is the _real _you?"

"Yes!" she shouted immediately. Then a bit quieter, to convince herself: "Yeah sure, something like this."

"You're eighteen. You're graduating high school. This is the time, Quinn. This is the time when you should find yourself. First step to becoming an adult? Stop _punishing_ yourself for things you did when you were a child."

Quinn blinked slowly, trying to prevent the impending tears from forming. No one had treated her like an adult before. No one except Rad, who had only wanted to take advantage of all the things her being an adult would mean. No one had treated her like an adult to help her. It almost made her wish she hadn't slashed Shelby's tires.

"Can I see her?" Quinn asked, her voice low and raspy, not just from the heavy smoking but from the sobs beginning to build in her chest.

Shelby tried to be subtle, but Quinn followed her eyes as they scanned her, and she knew what they were seeing. Pink hair. Dirty nails. Tattered rags for clothes with a heavy musk of smoke.

"Not yet."

Quinn felt a desperation pushing up from her stomach.

"How bout a photo," she tried to keep the tears out of her voice. "Please."

Shelby sighed and dug through her purse for her phone. Quinn picked at her cuticles, her eyes lowered, as Shelby clicked through a few screens on her phone. She handed Quinn the phone, queued up to a picture of her precious baby, years older than she remembered her, grown into a teetering toddler. Beth. Her perfect thing.

"You wanna know who you really are?" Shelby asked, hovering over Quinn's shoulder as she stared into the pretty little face framed on the phone screen. "Look at this face, this special little face. She looks just like you."

It was true. Quinn had seen Beth through Shelby's apartment window, splashing around in the sink, but she hadn't been close enough to make out her face. Now that Beth was nearly two, the resemblance was striking. Her rounded baby face didn't yet have Quinn's bone structure, but her skin was a glossy porcelain with just the faintest hint of rose at the cheeks, just like her mama. Her big doe eyes were a soft brown that glimmered green in the sunlight and framed by soft lashes. A knife stabbed into Quinn's heart and twisted as her lips began to quiver. It was the most painful love she had ever felt. She had never felt that way once about Finn, about Sam, and certainly not about Puck. She wondered if her own mother had felt this way when her daughters were small.

Shelby's hand touched down lightly on her shoulder.

"You can be a part of this family too, Quinn. I really want you to be. It's all up to you."

In that moment, Quinn couldn't hide it anymore, not from herself. She managed to hold back the tears until Shelby floated silently out of the room, but then the tears rushed up. She had just had pretty much the most horrific day she could think of. She knew going back to school was a bad idea, but she thought it would just be a pain in the ass to go to class and see people who used to be her friends. She hadn't envisioned the endless parade of people telling her what a fuck up she was, how she had ruined her life, thrown it all away, how she failed, failed, failed. At the end of the parade had been a giant float called Shelby Corchran, back from the dead, and not only back in Lima, but back at Quinn's school, where she never should have been in the first place.

She felt herself on the brink of a break. Every ion in her body was zipping around without focus or direction, smashing into bone and organs and skin, and careening back to do more damage. She felt jittery and anxious. Something had to happen. And soon. She couldn't do this anymore. She had to do something. Get a drink, have a smoke, she needed something to take the edge off this unbearable condition. When she felt like her insides would split if she didn't do something, she dropped Shelby's phone on the desk and sprinted from the room.

She barely felt her shoulder slam against an open locker as she raced down the hall. She burst into the computer room and collapsed down in front of a computer, her fingers shaking as they flew over the keys. She pulled up her Facebook and found Sam. She didn't know why she felt like she needed to talk to him. Everyone else in her life had let her down, she didn't know why she expected him to be any different. He couldn't possibly imagine what she had been going through. But for whatever reason, she needed to talk to him.

The hot tears in her eyes were making the words on the screen blur, so she leaned her head back and closed her eyes for a few moments, taking deep breaths to steady herself. When she felt calmer, she opened her eyes and tried again.

There weren't many posts on Sam's page, and he hadn't updated anything himself in six months. She knew he didn't have a computer, and she doubted following Facebook was the first priority in his life like it was for so many of her former friends. But she had lost his new number when she threw her phone, and maybe he had posted it there.

As her eyes scanned down the page, she didn't find his number, but she did find something peculiar. A post from some girl named Lindsay, whose profile picture was taken up mostly by cleavage. Did Sam have a new girlfriend?

_hey sammy! word around town is theres a gorgeous blonde with sexy lips working at stallionz. i told all our friends it couldnt possibly be u cuz ur only 16 and that would be soooooooo illegal. wouldnt want u 2 get in trouble ;)_

Quinn's brows furrowed. What did that mean? The idea of churchgoing, babysitting, sweetheart Sam Evans doing something illegal was beyond comprehension. Her curiosity getting the best of her, she pulled up Google and typed in "Stallionz Kentucky." She clicked on the top link that came up. The site didn't have too much information, but from what she could tell, it was a bar or a nightclub. Was Sam a bartender? That would be illegal, she guessed, since he was a minor and all. Quinn jotted down the address for the place on a scrap of paper and tucked it away for safe keeping.

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Sam moved from table to table, spraying and wiping down each surface so the place would look spotless by the time customers started showing up an hour later. Technically, the guys who worked the night before were supposed to take care of all this before they left, but Sam knew how it was. It was the end of the night, you were tired from dancing and stripping and working the room, maybe you even got a little extra cash in the back room so you were spent, and the last thing you wanted to do was clean a bar that women just sloshed martinis all over. So sometimes (or most times) they did a pretty half-assed job. But the next morning, when everyone was sober and the adrenaline high had died off, those sticky tables were pretty nasty. And Sam was used to cleaning up after the kids at home, so it really didn't bother him much.

Tonight, he was in a particularly good mood. His team had won a spectacular come from behind win last Friday night, and so far, kids had been all over him at school, congratulating him, asking to sit next to him at lunch, walking with him between classes, and flirting, lots and lots of flirting. None of the girls were half as pretty as the one he left behind, but it was fun having girls interested in him. Halfway through the season, his team was still undefeated, and if Sam could lead them into the Kentucky state playoffs without a loss, he would be a high school football god. Maybe then he would finally be somewhere where they wouldn't call him the new kid.

The phone rang and Sam looked up from his washrag until he saw Randi hurrying over to pick it up. He dropped his head back down and focused on his work.

"Mhmm. Mhmm. Yep. Mhmm."

Fascinating.

"Yep. Umm. I'm not sure. Hold on, he's right here, lemme ask him. Sam!"

Sam's head shot back up. Who in God's name would be calling him _here_? "Huh?" He stuffed his hands in his pockets and shuffled over to her, glancing nervously between his feet and Randi's face.

"Fan of yours is on the phone," she said slowly, looking him straight in the eyes. "Wants to know if you do house calls."

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Sam tapped his fingertips on the steering wheel of his truck, trying to think through all the things that could go wrong. And there were about a million of them. He could get the address wrong and go to the wrong house where some poor, unsuspecting woman would be confronted with a blond, teenaged stripper. He could be seen by somebody from school. He could get caught by a cop randomly patrolling the neighborhood. Her husband could be waiting at home with a rifle trained at his head from an upstairs window. Or even worse than all of those things combined, his mom could be sitting on the porch, waiting with though big, knowing eyes.

All that, and Randi hadn't been pleased. When he had told her to tell Eva okay (he knew it was her without having to ask), Randi had given him a stern talking to.

"Whatever ya'll get up to in those rooms back there," she said. He had never seen her quite this serious before. "I can control it. I can keep my boys safe. One call and you know there'll be a bouncer back there to take care of it. But Sam, if you start doing this, I can't look after you anymore. You'll be on your own. You're an adult and you can make decisions for yourself, but I want ya to know I don't like it and I don't support it. Ya got that clear?"

"Yes ma'am," he muttered, fighting hard to keep the smile off his face. He didn't wanna seem like he wasn't paying her mind when she was being so serious with him, but his teenaged boy brain was already far away, picturing those little black lace panties Eva loved to wear.

Her legs and her panties and her boobs and those magic dark eyes were all he could think about as he fumbled for his keys and sprinted for the door, promising Randi he'd be back, safe and sound, in time to dance. Then, he had felt like a million bucks, or at least a hundred. But now that he was sitting in front of her house (hopefully it was actually her house) he was a nervous wreck.

In the few weeks they had spent getting pretty damn familiar with each other's bodies in a back room at the club, Sam hadn't learned much else about her. Her name was Evelyn Addington, Eva for short. Sam had gotten that much out of her one night with her panties pushed to the side, his tongue flicking at that awesome little button between her legs that made her scream his name. He had worked her diligently with his fingers and lips and tongue, just like she had taught him, until she was dripping wet and trembling. Then he had drawn back, tracing lazy circles over her swollen clit with his middle finger while he told her it wasn't fair that she got to curse him and moan his name when she came but he didn't get the same privilege. When desperation finally overcame her, she caved and told him her name, then yanked him by the hair back between her legs. He got one last smirk in before he dutifully returned his lips to her pussy and licked her to a violent orgasm.

She had three children. Two daughters and a son, one living away from home at college, and the other two in high school, though he didn't dare ask where. He didn't know if she really believed he was twenty-one or not, but he wasn't about to blow his own cover. She cared for her husband, but according to Eva, he was boring. A balding, pot-bellied accountant who made enough money to keep them all comfortable, but who wasn't interested in her sexually anymore and couldn't keep her satisfied. Sam found that impossible to believe. She was mind-blowing. He thought about her supple body every minute when he was on stage, and way too often when he was at school or at home. She was the only woman he had ever touched, and every time he thought about all the dirty things he had done to her, and she to him, he got instantly hard and had to scamper off to the boys' bathroom, cheeks blazing, to take care of the problem.

Eva had told him of the existence of her family one night after she had taught him this super amazing thing called a sixty-nine. They were both spent and exhausted, and she lay gasping in his arms. He could feel her breasts heaving against his chest, and her still hard nipples pressed deliciously into the muscle there. He smoothed her hair and rubbed his nose against the top of her head, murmuring about how beautiful she was, how perfect and incredible. She pulled away from his chest to smile up at him gently, her eyes hooded.

"You're so sweet, Sam. I wish I could have you always."

"You have a boyfriend?"

The gears in his brain had started churning, however slowly. Maybe she didn't have to pay him for all the time they spent together. Maybe they didn't have to pleasure each other in the back of a strip club. Maybe they could be something real.

Her smile broadened, as if he had said something amusing.

"Oh, baby, you're so innocent," she leaned up to kiss his jaw. "I have a husband."

Sam had blushed something fierce for even entertaining the thought of a relationship with this amazing woman who was clearly out of his league. She had elaborated a few details about her family, probably to make him feel a bit better, but up until tonight, she had made every effort to keep her home life separate from their time together on a used mattress in the private room of a strip club.

Sam drew in a deep breath. Figuring it was now or never, he hopped out of the truck and headed up the walk towards a large brick home with a manicured lawn. He stuffed his hands as deeply as they would go in his jeans pockets, trying to stifle the urge to sprint. He wasn't sure if the desire to run was to get closer to Eva or further from the danger of being caught. And what exactly was he supposed to do? Knock? Ring the bell? Send a smoke signal? Fortunately, when he got to the door, there was a little yellow post-it note stuck to the glass.

_Come upstairs. Bring this with you._

He peeled off the slip of paper and stuffed it into the pocket of the zip-up hoodie he still had on from school. Testing the door, he found it unlocked and slipped in quietly, his heart racing. He was so excited and so terrified all at the same time that he felt exactly like he used to when he was eight years old and convinced his parents to let him watch a scary movie. The main character walked down the dark alley, and he just _knew_ someone was going to jump out. He didn't want it to happen. But he _soooo_ did. It was the danger of it all that was so thrilling, he figured. He wondered if this was how a badass like Puck felt all the time.

He pressed the door shut behind him and tip toed over the carpet towards the stairs. The whole first floor was dark, and a velveteen silence gave warning against being broken. His eyes scanned around a foyer, the living room, and the hallway to the kitchen. Everything was formal, perfect, in place, and clean. Nothing like his own home. Even though he and his mom did a good job of keeping everything clean, their house looked like five people lived in it and loved it. This place looked like no one had ever touched it. Like the pages of an IKEA magazine.

All around him, there were no signs of movement, but upstairs, a light glowed from somewhere down the hallway. He padded silently up the plush stairs, clammy palm trailing over the banister. When he reached the landing, he followed the soft light down to the end of the hall and gently tapped on the door.

"Come in," he heard Eva's husky voice call to him from behind the door.

He laid his palm flat against the door and gave it an easy nudge. It swung open slowly, silently, revealing a dark room, cast in a soft yellow glow by two bedside lamps. It wasn't just the lighting that made the room dark. Everything in it was rich and expensive. Wood paneled walls, heavy draperies, plush pillows, and thick bedding. Deep burgundies and black accents decorated the room simply but elegantly. It looked more like a hotel room than a bedroom where people fell asleep every night and woke up every morning. He had never seen anything like it.

But Sam's eyes were immediately drawn to the center of the king sized bed where Eva lounged, clad only in sheer black lingerie and strappy heels, legs crossed, smirking with those dark, alluring eyes. Her ample breasts were spilling from the low cut bra cups, and the transparent fabric of her negligee parted down the middle to reveal the soft, tan flesh of her belly. Her tiny sheer panties accentuated the roundness of her hips, and her thick, soft thighs pressed together tightly, teasing him. But it was always her eyes that made her painfully magnetic. As he took a few woozy steps towards her, he could smell the heavy musk of her perfume.

"Come here baby," she purred. "I've been dying waiting for you."

Sam shuffled towards her, and when he gulped, he realized that his mouth had been hanging open the entire time he had been staring. When he neared the edge of the bed, she rose to her knees and pulled him close by his hoodie.

"Let's get these off you baby. We don't have much time," she said, pushing the thin zip up off his shoulders as he stood there, limp as a rag doll in all places but one. "I would have come to see you tonight, but Al's home early and took the girls to a movie. And I just couldn't live without my blond addiction. You understand, don't you baby?"

The pout on her lips and in her eyes was so seductive that all Sam could do was nod from the dazed stupor she had him in. He reached his long fingers towards her breasts to fondle them, but she swatted his hand away with a smirk.

"Bad boy," she scolded. "Arms up."

He obediently raised his arms above his head and she all but ripped the t-shirt up off of him. Whoever said men were greedy and went instantly for the ass and tits clearly underestimated women, he thought bitterly, because as soon as she had him shirtless, her hands shot straight to his abs, rubbing them up and down slowly, savoring the rippling muscle. He let his chin sag down to his chest, white-blond strands falling across his eyes, so he could watch her enjoying his body.

"You're mine tonight, pet. You understand?"

"Yes ma'am." Sam nodded eagerly, blue-green eyes shining bright. His erection was straining so painfully at his jeans that he thought he would break. He reached down to unbutton his jeans, but once again, she slapped his hand away.

"No touching."

Sam gave her his best puppy eyes, but changed his mind when her fingers crawled between her breasts and toyed with that fragile little clasp straining to hold it all together. With the slightest flick of her thumb, her breasts erupted from the flimsy garment, nipples hard and eager. Sam reflexively licked his lips. His eyes flickered back and forth between her face and her breasts, waiting for permission to plunge his face between them. Instead, Eva leaned back on the mountain of pillows and closed her eyes, twisting the fingers of her left hand around and nipple and slipping her right down her body and under the waistband of her panties.

Her panties were sheer and completely transparent, and Sam could see every glistening drop of moisture as her finger slid between her lips. She loved torturing him. Loved hearing him whimper with the pain of not being able to bury himself in her, and her eyes burned into him wherever he went. Slowly, she spread her lips, and Sam felt his knees go weak. He couldn't handle it anymore.

"Please." His voice was deep and raspy, and he felt like the words were sticking in his throat.

"Please what pet?"

His cock throbbed.

"Please ma'am."

Eva crawled back over the bed towards him and raked her nails gently down his chest and abs. She unzipped his jeans and helped him out of them, along with his boxer briefs.

"Turn around please pet."

He turned and felt her fingertips crawling down his spine and tracing the curvature of his ass. When just a month and a half ago he would have blushed at the thought of being the center of attention and the object of so much desire, now he thrived in it. He loved knowing that just looking at him could leave this gorgeous woman wet and wanting. Eva groaned as she kneaded his muscular ass, then gave him a few quick swats to bring a blush to his milky skin and turn him around.

"Be a good boy and lay down on your back for mama."

Normally, he would have tripped himself in his haste to get on the bed, but he was so hard, so lethargic with lust, that it was all he could do to lift his legs and move into position. When he finally got himself situated on his back, legs spread to accommodate the throbbing in his balls, he glanced up at Eva, who was smiling wickedly. In her hands, she was toying with a black silk scarf.

She crawled on top of him slowly, deliberately, swinging her full hips as she moved. She let her thigh brush the length of his cock and on his hipbone he could feel the drenched cloth of her panties. Breasts hanging inches from his face, she lowered herself to a seated position around his ribs. From this close, he could smell the delicious heat coming off of her, and he thought about reaching his tongue out to swipe her nipple, but reconsidered. He was supposed to be a good pet, after all. She took him by the wrist and eased his left arm above his head. When she released it to capture his right arm, he made no move to resist. Eva weaved the silk scarf between the bed posts and bound his wrists. He gave an experimental tug. He could easily pull them free, but he wouldn't. He was hers now.

"Comfortable baby?" she asked genuinely. Even though he barely knew her, he knew that she wasn't interested in hurting him, and he wasn't worried. He nodded.

"Good boy."

She raised herself to slip out of her panties then wrapped them around his cock. It, too, was her prisoner now. Lowering herself to her knees over his shoulders, she spread herself for him, giving him the most open, unselfconscious view of her body. All the girls Sam had known before Eva were shy, but this woman was the most sexual creature he had ever met, and she knew she had nothing to be ashamed of. The sight and scent of her wetness was driving him mad, and he looked up into her eyes, pleading.

"Go ahead pet, get me ready."

Sam didn't need to be told twice. His tongue darted out to wet itself between her folds, and he immediately lashed it up over her clit. At this point, he was so beyond the concept of foreplay. He just needed to taste her and make her shiver and scream. Breathing her in, he rubbed his tongue in slow circles over her, alternating little flicks each time he felt her adjusting to his rhythm. If he had been allowed the use of his hands, he would have plunged two long fingers into her and pressed them against that spot that made her come on contract. But since he only had his lips to work with, which she considered a God given gift, he made the best of the situation by wrapping them tight around that little button and sucking for all he was worth. When her body tensed up and her hips started to buck, Sam knew she was going to come. Hell, he might come too, without being touched. He let his teeth graze her clit the way she liked it, but she screamed in pleasure and pulled away. Only then, when his head fell back against the pillow and yellow and purple stars flew across his eyes, did Sam realize he hadn't been breathing.

"Not just yet, my sweet pet. I have something to give you tonight."

Sam had never told Eva he was a virgin, but it wouldn't have been hard to guess. He had never had a blowjob before she gave him one, and had never eaten pussy before he learned to eat hers. The only natural conclusion was that he was totally inexperienced, which he was. With the exception of making out and some mild petting, of course.

Eva lowered her hips down his torso and reached behind her to remove her panties from his erection. His body bolted as she took his cock in her hand and pressed it against the wetness at her core. His eyes flew open wide at the electric feeling. Her face was inches from him as her dark eyes examined his light ones carefully. She dipped her lips to kiss him softly, then pressed another to his cheekbone. Her fingers gently traced the outline of his face as she studied him.

"Sam, you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," she paused, watching him carefully. "Do you want me to do this?"

Sam wasn't capable of thinking, but he didn't need to. There was nothing he wanted more in his life at that moment. "Yessssss."

Eva sat up and gripped one hand on his hip for balance while the other guided him into her. She pressed her hips down slowly, more for him than for her, so that the sensation wouldn't overwhelm his overstimulated senses. Sam's lips fell open and he panted as the head of his cock slid into the hot, tight core of her body. Lightning bolts flashed past the insides of his eyelids and every muscle in his body tightened to the point of cramping. His feet flapped, his hands tugged at the restraints, and a shivering sweat broke across his collarbone. When he was fully inside her, he felt his body slowly but surely calming, and he risked opening his eyes. His eyes fell from her electric eyes and mane of tousled hair to her heavy breasts, down to her thighs straddling his hips and settled on her lips, dripping and spread wide to accommodate his fully erect, rock hard cock. Ughhhh. His eyes snapped back shut and he held his breath so he wouldn't blow it.

"Okay baby?" Eva asked, after giving him a few moments to adjust. He nodded again.

Gripping his slim hips, she lifted herself smoothly then eased her weight back down on him. This time, she didn't stop, but instead worked up a slow, steady rhythm. When his breathing began to settle in to the pace she had set, Sam felt like he could finally relax and enjoy the insane pleasure coursing through him. He opened his eyes again and watched her move on him, breasts bouncing, belly giving a slight jiggle, and thighs slapping against his hips.

"Fuck, Sam. Fuck you're so hot."

He watched her eyes travel from his face to his chest to his abs and back again, drinking in everything. He bit the corner of his lower lip in a way that he knew drove her insane and smirked to himself when she threw her head back and wailed, thrusting herself on him harder. Within minutes, they were both moaning and writhing, the sound of their bodies colliding filling the otherwise silent house. Eva slid a hand between her legs to rub herself in time with her thrusts. It was incredible, but he could feel her orgasm nearing by the way her walls gripped him, and when he felt her clamping on him tight enough to break him, he pulled his arms free from the scarf and flipped her onto her back.

He pinned one knee back with his hip and held a wrist down next to her head as he pounded into her. His other hand tangled into her hair and held her head back as he nipped at her neck. He drove himself into her harder and harder, past her first orgasm and the rippling sensation it produced on him. He eased his grip on her hair and cupped the back of her head so he could kiss her deeply, tongues intertwining. She pulled away to gasp as he felt her tightening into a second orgasm.

"Come on baby. Come on. Please."

He grinned that lopsided grin she loved so much. "Who's begging now, _ma'am_?"

Eva uttered a low, animalistic moan, and Sam couldn't hold it back anymore. Burying his face in the crook of her neck, he shot into her, so hard it was sending waves of numbness through his body. Panting and shaking, he collapsed on top of her, his entire weight dead. He didn't even bother helping as she rolled him off of her, and instead just lay there waiting for his heart to explode.

"Mmm sweetheart, you were so good. You young things are so full of life and energy."

After a few minutes of lying on his back, waiting for the stars to recede, he felt Eva giving his shoulder a gentle nudge.

"Thank you baby. I need you to get going, though. Al will be home soon."

Sam nodded and rose drunkenly from the bed, pulling his clothes on haphazardly. She gave him a brief kiss on the lips, and she was headed for the shower when he left. The cool October air felt good on his flushed skin when he walked down the path, away from Eva's door and out into the night. He slid into his truck silently as a car pulled up. It was too dark to really see them, but a balding man sat behind the wheel, accompanied by two girls with dark ponytails. Just like their mama.

He reached into his back pocket for his keys, and his fingers brushed over something unexpected. He pulled it out and studied it in the shadows. Two hundred dollars in twenties.

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**Well, I know none of us will ever be happy with Sam's first time as it may have really happened on the show, but there it is. I've tried to mix the light and dark sides of it, and I hope I found the right balance. Hate mail is always welcome as well. **


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19**

**Well, here it is. I've been sitting on this since Monday because, in my mind, the story revolves around this scene. This is what I envisioned when I decided to write this story, and I want it to be perfect. After three days of mulling, I realize that it can't be perfect, so I'm just throwing it out into the world. I'm really nervous about it because I want you all to love it, but the longer it sits here, the less I like it so . . . **

**It's definitely sad, there's no avoiding that. But, unlike real Glee, I'm promising you a happy ending full of rainbows and sunshine, so I think we can wallow in the misery and enjoy it knowing tomorrow will be brighter. Anyway, I'm talking here because I'm nervous about you reading the actual chapter so . . . **

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Quinn sat behind the wheel of her BMW, watching as car after car crunched over the gravel parking lot. There were expensive Mercedes sedans and flashy Audi roadsters. There were cute little Volkswagens with Chi Omega stickers plastered all over the bumpers and more modest models like hers. And minivans. There was an unfathomable number of minivans. At first, Quinn only had a vague notion that most of the people getting out of those cars were women. But when she decided to start actually monitoring, she realized with confusion that it was way more than most. All of them were women. Must be ladies' night.

She kept her sunglasses over her eyes and her head tucked low, hoping no one would stop to wonder why a girl—not even old enough to be there, though she had added years to her appearance in the past months—had been sitting alone in her car for the past two hours. Had it really been two hours? Quinn checked the digital clock on the radio. 9:07. Yep, she had been sitting there, in her BMW, in the parking lot of a bar, for two hours and seven minutes.

She had no idea what was stopping her from going in other than the notion that she had no idea why she was there in the first place. She had a four hour drive to think of a reason, and she was still coming up blank. At precisely that moment a few days ago when she had flown, sobbing, from Shelby's choir room, she had wanted to talk to Sam because she thought he might be the only person left on earth who could help her. She had no particular faith in Sam above anyone else, but the idea of him—of a guy who had once bothered to try to figure out how she was feeling about another guy dumping and embarrassing her, _after she cheated on him_—made her think that maybe Sam Evans could empathize with anything. People always made fun of him for not being too bright, but he was emotionally intelligent. The lady on one of the talk shows her mom watched was always talking about emotional intelligence. She never got what the fuck that meant until she met Sam.

If she allowed herself to dig deeply enough, Quinn figured that's really why she was here. Underneath all the badass, there was still a girl in there. And that girl wanted Sam to take one look into her war-torn eyes, see everything that she had been through and everything she was still struggling with, pull her into his arms, and tell her everything was going to be ok. If she had that, just that small little reassurance that someone got it and wasn't going to write her off the next time it was convenient—if she had that, maybe it really would be ok.

From out in the parking lot, she could hear the muddled roar of a crowd through the heavy doors. They probably had a band on tonight. Funny, though, there weren't any windows in the place. What kind of bar had no windows?

For the first time in months, Quinn checked her makeup to make sure she looked ok. Maybe it was compulsive. She knew she looked nothing like the girl Sam remembered, and that was something she wasn't planning on changing, but something inside her wanted him to accept her. Old habits die hard, and the way she had always gotten love and praise and acceptance was by looking good. So she made sure she didn't have any streaks of eye makeup raging down her cheeks (which had happened before), and she even bothered to smooth her clothes a bit.

After a hacking cough from getting up too quickly, Quinn recovered and strode towards the door, trying the squash the butterflies in her stomach with feigned confidence. She hoped she didn't make too big a scene when she walked in. From what she had seen from the parking lot—soccer moms, sorority girls, lawyers, consultants, and accountants, some young, some not so young—this wasn't the type of bar people like her frequented. Between the pink hair, the flowing black skirt, the combat boots, the cutoff leather jacket, and the aviators, she would have looked far more at home in a biker bar. But it didn't matter. She had driven four hours. She was here now. And she had to see him.

Much to her surprise, when she shouldered her way through the door, not a single head turned. It was dark and smoky, and a heavy bass thumping through the club made the walls vibrate and Quinn's chest thud. She couldn't see more than three feet in front of her through the forest of arms waving in the air, so she dipped her head and wove through the bouncing bodies, focusing on putting one boot in front of the other.

When she reached the front of the crowd, she looked up and saw the object of everyone's attention. Up on a stage, about four feet above a hoard of wailing women, was an absolutely gigantic man, skin black as ink and glistening with sweat and oil, flexing his muscles, doing deep and rhythmic hip thrusts, clad in what could only be accurately described as a banana hammock. Quinn had never seen a man in a thong before—actually, she had never seen anyone in a thong before since, even after her transformation, she hadn't bothered to buy any new, unchristian panties—and this was a full-fledged, bright yellow G-string, exposing his beefy cheeks and struggling to contain all his . . . junk. Quinn's cheeks burned as pink as her hair when she realized she was staring.

She tore her eyes away from the man's gyrating package and scanned the crowd. Women, from their twenties all the way up to their fifties, swaying on their too-high heels, waving Cosmos and Margaritas above their heads and sloshing some in their hair, cheering and making lewd gestures and shouting cat calls Quinn had only heard before on construction sites. Each second that passed, she felt her chest begin to constrict and her heart beat faster. Long, slow fingers of realization began to probe her consciousness. She watched with building horror as women waved dollar bills in the dancer's face, and he turned and shoved his butt out gratefully so they could stuff the money in his thong.

_No. He wouldn't. Not Sam. No no no_ . . .

Quinn shoved her way through the crowd, trying to escape the frontlines where women were clawing and shoving each other out of the way to get closer to the dancer. She stumbled towards the bar, where a more subdued crowd was sitting sipping drinks. There was no less lust and greed in their eyes than the ones bold enough to throw their money at the object of their desire. Behind the bar, a burnt out bottle blonde who has seen better days was wiping the bar top down with a rag. She seemed to have little interest in the show.

"Does Sam work here?" she shouted at the woman over the loud music and the screams.

The woman eyed her suspiciously. Quinn was getting used to the eyes traveling from her hair to her boots and examining everything in between, but she resented the judgment from this chick. This old lady who fake baked so often she wrinkled herself like a steamed apple and probably screwed more than her fair share of bikers was in no place to judge her. She put her hands on her hips and huffed. She was beginning to lose patience.

"Who the hell are you?"

"A friend of his. He works here?"

"We don't use those names on the floor sweetheart. White Chocolate. If you want back room time with him, you call him that."

Quinn's eyes narrowed. So he did work here. Her anger was building steadily, and her throat was getting sticky.

"Where is he," she demanded. She would wring this bitch's neck if she had to, but she would find him. She didn't care anymore.

"Look sweetheart, you ain't the only one who wants to see him tonight. You're gonna have to wait your turn."

If this bitch called her sweetheart one more time, she would punch that smirk right off her face. She seriously didn't care.

"Where the fuck is Sam. Tell me right now."

"Look honey, I don't know who the hell you think you are . . . See that bouncer over there? Big boy, huh? Yeah, he'll have your nasty ass out of here in a second if you think you're just gonna walk in my club and mess with my boys. That kid's like a son to me and if you think you're gonna mess . . . "

Ignoring her entirely, Quinn pulled her phone from her pocket.

"What are you doing?"

"Calling the police."

"Wait. Put the phone down," the woman swatted at her hand. "Seriously, put that down. What are you calling the cops for?"

"That kid who's like a son to you is sixteen. I believe that would make it illegal for him to work here, no? I can't imagine the police are going to be too sympathetic to you pimping out a minor. They'd probably even put you on the _sex offender_ registry, wouldn't they?"

Quinn could see the fear and panic rising in the woman's burnt coffee eyes.

"He, he's twenty-one," she said timidly, her confidence shaken. "I checked his ID."

"Well, I can tell you with certainty that he's not. He's a junior in high school. He'll be seventeen in March. But I'm sure you can tell the cops all about the ID."

"Wait!" she cut in, grabbing at Quinn's phone as she held it up to her ear. Quinn glared at her with a mixture of loathing and contempt and the smugness that came from knowing she was winning. "Wait. Okay. What do you want?"

"This is the last time I'm asking you. Where. Is. He."

"He's in one of the private rooms."

"Where." Quinn demanded, starting to back away.

"Down that hall there, last one on the right . . ." she pointed. "But seriously, he's with someone. You really oughta just wait!"

She called after Quinn, but as soon as Quinn knew where to look, she was gone, marching down the dimly lit hallway, her boots stamping on the pressed concrete. The bile began to rise in her throat as she realized where she was and what was happening. From behind the other doors, a soundtrack of moans and screams and grunts and groans filled the hallway. Bedsprings creaked, and there was a strange occurrence, too regular to be coincidence, of the buzzing, overhead fluorescent flickering each time a bed frame smacked against the wall. In the back of her mind and the pit of her stomach, Quinn knew what was going on. She saw it with sickening clarity. But some deeply ingrained instinct—some mechanism that kicked in when she was a child and her mother was drinking or her father was yelling, or even when she was one or two months pregnant and still wearing her Cheerios uniform—clouded her mind and shielded her from the truth.

Her stomach tightened and her steps slowed as she approached the last door on the right. Even from some yards away, she could see that the door was cracked open a foot, and yellow light from inside was casting shadows on the dark cinderblock wall. Inside, faint gasps and whispers brushed against the silence enveloping her. She reached out and touched her fingers to the door cautiously, creeping closer to that beam of light. She was nervous. She was frightened. She was angry. She was intrigued.

Barely daring to touch the door, she inched closer and dipped her eyes just past the edge. The small room was well lit, but from her hideout, she could only see broad shapes. Skin. She could see skin. Peach skin and bronze skin, blurred together. The curve of a knee. The peak of a shoulder blade. A male shoulder blade, sharp and angular, gliding gracefully beneath skin and muscle. Moving fluidly. She risked leaning in another inch. One shoulder blade became two across the expanse of a broad, muscular back. A knee lengthened into a tanned, shapely calf, pointed into a black, strappy stiletto. Strong arms wrapped around thighs, and long, callused fingers dug into flesh. Quinn's lips parted and drew in a breath, her eyes burning over the swaths of skin. She stepped fully in front of the gap in the door.

From where she was standing, she could see them, and she was sure if they looked, they could see her. But the chances of them looking seemed remote. The woman was seated in an armchair, totally undone. Her head was thrown back, hair tousled, makeup smudged. Her blouse, probably too snug to begin with, was unbuttoned and thrown open, and both breasts hung free of her bra cups. Her pencil skirt was hoisted up high on her hips, legs spread wide, one heeled foot planted firmly on the floor, the other tossed over her lover's shoulder.

He was on his knees between her legs, naked except for a tiny pair of shiny gold shorts. Quinn almost smiled at the memory of how bashful he had been in a more conservative pair of shorts almost a year ago, but that boy was dead and gone, and so was the girl who thought she might have loved him. His arms were looped under her legs, holding her close and preventing her from squirming away from his manipulations. And she couldn't help noticing the build he had put on. The boy Quinn knew was defined, but slim bordering on scrawny, with a look of hunger mixed with resolve in his eyes. He had been about as comfortable in his body as a newborn colt testing its gangly legs. This boy, man really, was still slender through the hips, but his shoulders and back and arms were rippling with muscle, and Quinn was trying her best not to stare at his shiny gold butt as he moved. And he carried with him no traces of insecurity.

He was so transformed, in fact, that Quinn's brain and heart were still working diligently to convince her that it wasn't him; there was some mistake, and this boy she considered a friend wasn't doing this to himself. He wouldn't do this; he _couldn't_ be doing this. Not the sweet, dopey, almost shy church boy she had known. Not the boy who had always looked around, as if to make sure his parents weren't watching, before he closed his eyes to kiss her. But that blond hair, that distinctive blond head that had rested against her breast when they cuddled in bed together Wednesday mornings over the summer, was wedged between some older woman's thighs, making her whine and moan and curse his name. His _client_. The word sounded foreign as it rifled around her brain. _Client_. He _couldn't_ be doing this.

She was close. Quinn could tell by the way her legs were quivering and by the death grip she had on Sam's hair. She had wrapped her leg around his neck, and her heel was digging into his back. Quinn wondered how it was even possible for him to breathe. But he had probably done this so many times by now that he had the technique mastered. No. Stop. _Stop stop stop_. She forced the thought from her mind as she felt the tears starting to well.

"Ohhhh God baby, you're so good," the woman groaned at him. "You like that pussy, pet? I just knew when I saw those lips that you were born to do this. You're worth every penny."

Quinn couldn't hold back the rage that was bubbling up inside her any longer. The seeds of it had been planted the moment she walked in the door and saw that stripper shaking his bare ass at some sex starved soccer moms for a couple bucks. She had wanted to punch that biker hag right in the teeth for letting Sam do this. Then, she had wanted to punch this slut taking advantage of him. Now, she pretty much just wanted to punch Sam, right in his pretty mouth, for doing this to himself. She brushed the tears away from her eyes and dropped the sunglasses back into place.

"Pet?" she asked, letting the door swing open, her voice calm and steady.

The woman nearly jumped out of her skin, sitting bolt upright in her chair and clutching her blouse to her bare chest. She nearly kneed Sam in the face in her haste to cover herself. Sam was startled too and sat back on his heels. He looked up at her from his position on the floor, his full lips glistening from his work, eyes clouded with confusion. Quinn stood with her hands on her hips, not budging.

"That's what he is to you? A pet?"

Her lips pressed into a narrow line, and she struggled to keep her voice from betraying the ripples of her anger.

"Who, who is she Sam?" the woman asked quietly, stunned and more than a little afraid. Quinn knew she was an intimidating sight. She had seen the way little old ladies scuttled off as fast as their arthritic legs would carry them when they saw her in parking lots.

"I, I don't . . . " he stumbled.

It was at that moment that Quinn realized that he didn't recognize her. Didn't recognize her at all. A bolt of sorrow shot through her. She wanted to scream at him_. I'm still me, Sam! I'm the same girl I've always been! This girl has been right here all along. I'm just not hiding anymore_. She lifted the sunglasses. Sam's lips parted and his eyes widened.

"Quinn?"

"Leave," she commanded, her voice dripping frozen venom. She locked eyes with the brunette slut. "Leave. And don't _ever_ touch him again or I will find you, and I'll kill you in your sleep before you even have a chance to scream."

Not waiting to finish buttoning her blouse, the woman stumbled upright on her heels and bolted towards the door. Sam, too, rose slowly to his feet, running a hand through his hair in disbelief. His body was incredible, she noticed, but she guessed it would have to be if that was the product he was pushing. _Stop_.

"Quinn . . . what, what happened?" he asked, too shocked to take even a step towards her.

"Put some fucking clothes on, Sam. You look ridiculous."

The Sam she knew would have blushed fiercely and tried to cover up, ashamed that she would call him out and afraid that there was some flaw on display. This new, weird version of Sam just stood there.

"My, um, well, everything's in the other room. In my locker. Please Quinn," he moved towards her, finally, and reached out to touch her shoulder. "What's wrong? What happened to you?"

She jerked away when his hand made contact, her eyes throwing daggers.

"_Me_? What happened to _me_? _I_ dyed my hair while you were gone. _You_ whored yourself out to the entire female population of Kentucky! Shouldn't _I_ be asking what the fuck happened to _you_?"

His eyes slid closed, stung, and his voice came out soft and low.

"It's not like that."

"Not like what? Not like you get up on that stage and take your clothes off so those drunk old ladies can get off on you? Not like you just _ate out_ some _stranger_ for money? It's not like what Sam?" His lips were moving, he wanted to say something, but she was so disgusted and enraged, the words coming so furiously, that she couldn't stop.

And then a thought floored her. "Sam . . . you didn't. You didn't _sleep_ with them did you? Oh my God, Sam, you were a virgin. You didn't right? Promise me you didn't."

He folded his arms across his chest protectively and looked at his bare feet. All that bravado was melting away, and shy, scared, Lima Ohio Sam was reemerging from beneath the armor. A blush was rising in his cheeks, and he began to twist awkwardly on his feet. Quinn's eyes widened, and despite herself, her hand flew up to cover her mouth. She collapsed back against the wall, using it to stop her world from spinning. He didn't need to say anything.

"Oh. My. God. Oh God Sam, how _could_ you?! How could you even _think_ of doing that?! You _sold_ yourself! You sold your _body_! Doesn't that mean _anything_ to you?! What the fuck is _wrong_ with you? How could you do something so _stupid_?"

How was this happening to her? It was like God or fate or the universe was playing some kind of sick joke on her, where everything of value in her life, everything good and beautiful and happy, everything that was worth living for, was transformed into some fun house mirror version of itself, twisted and distorted until all that was left were the broken shards and sharp edges. And all the things in her life that she lost, well, she didn't just lose them. They were right there, right in her face to taunt and maim her. Her neglectful parents, Shelby and Beth back from New York, and now Sam. Sweet Sam who she had once wanted to slowly open herself up to and share her heart's first time with, had been giving himself away to every single person who could afford him. A cruel joke.

"It's just, my family needed the money, and the Dairy Queen, and—"

"Money. You did it for money." Her lips were trembling and tears of rage wavered at the corners of her eyes. Inside, her body was in a panic. Nerves on edge, racing like electric jolts through her system. Fingers shaking, she shoved her hand deep into the pocket of her oversized leather jacket and pulled out her wallet.

"Quinn, what are you doi—"

"Money?! There's a line, Sam. There are some things in this world that money isn't worth. You want fucking _money_? Here!"

She ripped a stack of cash out of her wallet and peeled a one off the top, throwing it in his face. She took a step towards him, flicking another bill at him.

"Quinn, stop." He shook the money off of him like it burned and raised his hands in front of his face to defend himself from her fevered attack.

With each step she took, closer and closer, she launched money at him until she was right up in his face, gritting her teeth and letting the tears fall freely. When she was screaming through clenched teeth and pounding twenties against his chest, crying uncontrollably and calling him disgusting names, he cemented his arms around her, imprisoning her arms against her sides.

"Let me go! Let me fucking go!" she wailed at him, throwing herself from side to side and trying to wriggle or knee her way free. But he was strong as steel, and she couldn't break him.

"Quinn, please stop. This is insane."

"Get the fuck off me Sam. Get off of me or I'll kill you too!"

"Quinn, stop! You're not going to kill anybody!" he screamed at her, finally breaking. She looked up to see his eyes, normally so bright and full of life, turning a darker blue than the ocean and storming over with anger. "Stop saying that! What the hell is wrong with you?! What happened to you?! Why are you doing this?!"

Her body was beyond her control as she sobbed and gasped and shook. Her chest was so tight and all she wanted to do was lash out with her arms. At Sam, at her parents, at the world . . . whoever would take her blows. And she could feel his body start to shake too. Every muscle quivered with adrenaline. She tried to imagine for a moment that his arms were around her, not to constrain her and prevent her from hurting him, but to comfort and protect her. Like those afternoons she would lay on his chest and start to doze as he ran his fingers through her hair. But it was no use. He gripped her by the upper arms, fingers digging into her skin hard enough to bruise, and stared down at her. His lips were shaking so hard his teeth were almost chattering.

"I needed you! Everything's went all wrong and I needed you and you left me right when I needed you the most!"

She didn't care how desperate she sounded. She didn't care if it wasn't his fault. It was all his fault.

"I called you Quinn! I loved you and you wouldn't let me say it. I wanted to be your boyfriend and stay true to you; you didn't want that. I called you, and you never called me back! So don't even try to tell me that whatever _this is_ is my fault because I wasn't there for you. You did this yourself!"

Something inside her broke, and she lashed out hard with her right hand. The sickening sound of her hand cracking against his face filled the room, and he stepped back, stunned and blinking. His hands dropped away from her arms, and she stumbled towards the door. She stepped out into the hallway, then turned to look back at the shell of her first love.

"I came here because I wanted you to save me," she mumbled through the tears, her voice unnaturally high. "But you better fucking save yourself first."

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It was a miracle that Sam had made it back home without wrapping himself around a tree. The bartender would have given him a whole bottle of whiskey if he wanted it, but he didn't. He felt drunk enough off the racing and plummeting levels of adrenaline he had been subject to for the last hour and a half. He had battled some deep and primal urge to just drive himself off the road the entire way home, but he was here now, safe, taking long breaths through his nose to try to calm himself.

Still sitting in the driver's seat, Sam leaned his head down against the wheel, running his hands through his short blond hair. He had been fine up until a few hours ago. He hadn't had the time, the energy, or the desire to think about who or what he had become. But here it all was, thrown right up in his face, unavoidable. Slipping the keys back into his pocket, he all but fell to his feet out of the truck and wandered silently towards the house.

Thankfully, all was quiet inside. Everyone was asleep. In the living room, his little brother was sleeping peacefully on the pull out couch they shared, his back rising and falling evenly. Sam would give just about anything to be his age again, even just for a few hours or days. To not feel like a part of his life was over, and not just gone, but demolished—Quinn was right, you couldn't put a price on that.

He slipped into the tiny hall bathroom and turned on the light. Resting his hands on the side of the sink, he leaned in towards the mirror, really looking at himself for the first time in months. His hair was disheveled, there was a faint bruise forming over his cheekbone, and a few specks of dried blood lingered at the corner of his mouth from where Quinn had slapped him. His face had hardened. His cheekbones and jaw were more pronounced, more angular, and that little bit of baby fat in his cheeks had disappeared. There was nothing he could do about his mouth, and it still took up most of his face, he noticed with annoyance, but lately his mouth had been quite the attraction. And his eyes were harder now, too.

He splashed some water over his face and touched his fingers tenderly to his cheekbone. He supposed he deserved that slap. Up until then, he hadn't really stopped to think about whether what he was doing was wrong or could be bad for him. But a slap to the face sure made you think a lot harder.

_I sold myself. I sold my body. I'm a whore_. He tried the words out. Quinn hadn't been wrong about any of the things she had said, but somehow, they felt foreign to him.

When he was stripping, when he was with Eva, none of it had felt wrong. All the other guys at the club were strong and confident and bragged about what they did. And all the women at the club were appreciative. Once he had gotten the hang of it, it had been fun, and the money was great. But Quinn opened up a thousand wounds he hadn't known existed. What would his parents think if they found out? What words would they use to explain what he was doing to his little brother and sister if _they_ found out? School would be a nightmare. Would he be kicked out of his congregation for what he did, what he had made of himself? Even if no one ever found out, God would know. God knew what he did and was judging him right this very second. Stripper. Prostitute. Did any of those ever make it to Heaven?

He blinked hard and shook his head. He couldn't deal with this all right now. He undressed down to his boxers and turned off the bathroom light, heading back out to the living room to join Stevie in bed. Stevie had already cocooned himself in most of the blankets, but Sam found a spare corner to curl up under. His brother had probably already been asleep for hours, and the bed was hot. Sam watched him as he slept. His white blond hair was mused with sleep, his lips hung open, and a string of drool fell from the corner of his mouth to his pillow. Stevie always tried to be so cool, just like his brother, but when he was sleeping, he was just a baby.

Less than a year ago, the six year age difference between Sam and his brother hadn't been quite so jarring. Stevie was a kid, Sam was a goofball, and they got along just fine playing superheroes and chasing each other around the yard. But everything had changed. Stevie was a child, he was an adult, and when he looked at his brother, all he saw was what he had thrown away. When had it changed? At one moment? When he lost his virginity? When he started stripping? When he started working at the pizza place? When his parents lost their home? He had no clue.

And as mad as Quinn had been at him, he could ask the same question about her. What the hell had happened to her? He honestly had no idea who she was when she surprised him in the back room. He felt like he understood her better than most, and maybe the don't give a fuck attitude of that pink-haired, angry girl had been inside her all along, but what had tipped her over the edge? He had no idea what had happened in her life since he left Ohio, but if he had to guess, he would say that this change had been in the making since the day, long before he knew her, that she found out she was pregnant.

He brushed the hair out of his brother's eyes, and Stevie stirred in his sleep, turning to face him and reaching an arm out across Sam's chest to cuddle into his side. He watched Stevie's innocent face as it settled against his ribs. Then the tears came. He hadn't realized that he needed to cry, but apparently he needed to badly, and for a long time, because once they started, he couldn't make himself stop.

He pressed his eyes shut and tried to keep quiet until this moment of weakness passed so that he wouldn't wake his brother. But, eventually, he was shaking so hard that he felt Stevie stiffen, his eyes sliding open. Stevie rubbed at his eyes, his brows knotting in confusion as he realized that his big brother was crying.

"Sammy? What's wrong?" he asked, his little voice full of concern. He had probably never seen his big brother cry. "Are you sad?"

Sam felt the tears sliding down his cheeks, and there was no point in hiding anything now. He nodded.

Stevie frowned, thinking of the best thing to do. He climbed up so that his head was resting on Sam's shoulder and wrapped both arms tightly around his chest. It was a small gesture, but welcomed. Sam pulled Stevie in close and buried his face in the little boy's hair, letting the tears fall there.

"Don't worry Sammy," he said, grasping in his half sleep for what his mother always told him. "When you're sad, just remember that Jesus always loves you."

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Quinn wrapped her arms around her chest, trying to protect herself from the cold.

"Wake up goddamn it," she cursed into the night. Her breath turned to frozen vapor, and she shivered.

She picked up another rock from the gravel driveway and tossed it up at the window. Sure, throwing pebbles was a little old fashioned, and there were probably better ways to do this, like calling, but it was four in the morning, and she didn't want the entire house to wake up. She threw another. A shadowy figure passed in front of the window then disappeared. Seconds later, the front door cracked open and Noah Puckerman was standing there in his pajama pants, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

"Quinn? It's like three in the morning. What do you want? Jeez, come inside, it's freezing."

Quinn stepped inside the door, and Puck swore when he got a good look at her. Her eyelids were puffy from crying almost the whole way home, and salty black streaks coated her face. Her eyes were bloodshot.

"I umm, I need you to do something for me," she croaked, her voice hoarse from the tears.

"Umm, yeah, what uhh, anything. What is it?"

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a slip of paper, handing it to him. Fresh tears began to bubble up in her eyes.

"I need you to go there and get Sam. He's in trouble and needs help. Please bring him home."

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**Ta da. Tell me it's great, tell me it's terrible, just say something please. **


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20**

**Hey guys! Sorry for the delay. Honestly, it takes as much out of me to write an emotional chapter as it takes you to read it, and I just needed some time to breathe and live my "real" life. **

**Warnings: In this chapter, you may see a side of Sam you don't like. It'll probably depend on how strict your sense of morality is, and personally, I'm the biggest cheerleader for how he acts in this chapter (which is why I wrote it!). But I know already that some of you are going to hate what he does (or what I made him do, if you prefer). So, if you are one of those people, feel free to tell me about it in your review, but remember, he's a fictional character, and like most things in life, elections included, this will not cause the end of the world as we know it. **

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Sam sat on a bench in the club's locker room, absentmindedly staring at himself in the mirror. He had been doing that a lot lately. It wasn't out of vanity. There was a time when he would have blushed at being called attractive. But attractive now was something totally separate from him as a person. Attractive had a commercial value. It equaled a precise number of pairs of shoes, gallons of milk, and tanks of gas. Attractive, he had learned, could get you a whole lot in life, but it wasn't part of who you were. So when he studied his face in the mirror, it wasn't to admire how he looked. It was to figure out who he was.

Try as he might, he just couldn't get himself to button up his shirt, put on a tie, and get back out on that stage.

Today had started out better than most. It was Friday, the day of the District Championship game, which his team had made by beating their division rivals in overtime last week. He had managed to keep them undefeated all season, and all of the guys, even Bobby, were really starting to gel as a team. They all wanted to win a state championship, and it was something they were willing to put aside their differences for.

Everyone in town was a true believer in Sam Evans now. When he went grocery shopping at the local market to give his mom a rest, he always ended up coming home with armfuls of free baked goods, courtesy of the shop owner, who was "a big big fan." Random strangers on the street with moustaches, oversized belts, and heavy accents patted him on the shoulders and called him son. And when he dropped Stevie and Stacy off at school in the morning, a little flock of grade school teachers always squeezed his arm and told him what a great job he was doing. There was blushing and stammering on both sides when he and a bashful blonde teacher recognized each other.

And today, he would be the center of a huge pep rally in front of the entire school. It was everything he always dreamed of, really. Love bordering on adoration. Popularity. Attention. Acceptance. In his first weeks at McKinley, he had lost sleep dreaming about it. People cheering his name from the stands. Cheerleaders getting weak-kneed when he glanced their way. All the guys thinking he was cool. But he had experienced it now. He was used to people shouting his name from a crowd. He knew want it felt like to be desired, and it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. He thought, now, that he might understand how Quinn felt—what good was it to be wanted and envied when not one person out there could understand you?

Now the attention was making him uncomfortable. When kids stopped to look at him as he walked down the hall, his heart started to race, and he wondered if they had been talking about him, if they _knew_ something about him. He avoided his parents' attention at all costs because he worried that they could see the dirty on him. Every time his mom called his name, he froze and his stomach tightened, waiting for the hammer to fall. Ever since Quinn came, there was just one fraying thread left holding up the world from crashing in on him. And now, he was supposed to sit in front of the entire student body while Coach Woods preached about how this northern kid from "Ahaya" came to them to save their program and lead them to the promised land of the state playoffs. One. Last. Thread.

All day, Sam had been watching the clock, his foot and pencil tapping erratically. The pep rally was scheduled for sixth period, the last one of the day, and one by one, the other students had been excusing themselves from class—members of the band to practice and get warmed up, cheerleaders to decorate the football players' lockers, and the student council to set up the gym. As he looked around at the scattered handful of bored students left in his fifth period class, he started to feel like he was the only person left who wasn't a stoner or a goth and didn't have somewhere better to be.

When he couldn't stand the silence for a second longer, the bell finally rang. He nearly tripped himself and overturned the desk getting up too fast, but the sooner he could get out of the room, the sooner he could get the pep rally over with, and the sooner he could move on to something he cared about. Like the game. That's where he felt most like himself. That's where he could block out everything but the ball and the lights and the end zone and his receiver's hands. If he could just make it through the rest of this day, through the steaming hours of attention he no longer wanted, he would survive.

Sam hoisted his pile of books up higher on his hip. Normally he would have stopped at his locker to switch out his books, but the whole football team was officially forbidden to touch their lockers after lunch by Miss Lindsay the Cheer Goddess so that the cheerleaders had time to decorate. It was all well and good, and Sam would happily avoid her for another day, except for the fact that he now had a stack of books piled so high that, balanced on his hip, he was barely able to stop them from spilling over his shoulder.

He weaved down the hallway, trying to avoid bumping into another student and sending his books flying all over the hallway. Red and blue crepe paper streamers hung from the ceiling, and hand painted posters covered the walls. Big construction paper bubble letters spelled out "Go Cardinals! Bite The Bulldogs!" over an entire row of lockers. One cheerleader was rushing off towards the gym, pom poms in tow, sneakers squeaking on the polished floor. The excitement of the pep rally was electrifying the air in the crowded hallway. The athletes, the popular kids, the kids with school spirit—they were all getting pumped up for the game. But the punks and the nerds and rednecks and the hood rats, even the teachers, were thrilled about missing the last class of the day on a Friday, so the excited chatter buzzed around his ears like swarming bees.

As Sam turned the corner and neared his locker, he started to notice people staring at him. He glanced around nervously, and the eyes followed him, some darting away upon contact, some carrying the traces of a smirk, some awestricken. He swallowed hard and tried to focus on moving through the bodies. He tried to convince himself that he would just have to get used to it. _This is what you wanted_. This is what being the quarterback meant. It meant all eyes on you, all the time. And nobody ever became a great quarterback by shying away from a little attention. But now a group of kids was openly staring at him, snickering. _What the hell?_

"Ow ow!" a male voice catcalled out of nowhere. Sam turned sharply, searching for the source, but couldn't find him. A short brunette girl he had never noticed before was waving a dollar as he walked by.

_No_.

"Sam!" he heard the shout before he felt the fingers plunge into the back of his collar and yank, almost tugging him off his feet and spilling his books everywhere. "Hey Sam! Wait Up!"

Sam steadied himself and cradled his books, turning to face the voice he had gotten to know so well in the past few months. "Bobby?"

"Hey!" Bobby Donahue smiled brightly, "Aren't you going to the pep rally? Come on! Go with me, you're gonna be late!"

"Yeah, umm, yeah I will, I just gotta drop these books off at my locker. What, what's going on?"

Another catcall came from somewhere down the hall. Bobby's face darkened.

"Sam, come on man. Just come to the gym with me. Please?"

Sam's jaw clenched and his lips tightened into a thin line. He shrugged Bobby's hand off his shoulder and marched towards his locker. When he got there, there was a group of kids clustered around, gawking, but they parted nervously when they saw him approaching. On his locker, flying like the flags of the world, were pinned ten brightly colored, shiny, glittering thongs. Red and blue, silver and gold, black leather, leopard print, and bright yellow decorated with cartoon bananas. Dollar bills stuck out of the vents. And in the middle was a huge, blown up photo of him on stage. He was down to a pair of latex hot pants and a cowboy hat, with blunted spurs strapped around his boots. His chest and abs were clenched, the bulge in his shorts was on full display, and a giant smile plastered his face.

He remembered that night. He had only done that cowboy routine once. It had been just after things had started to heat up with Eva, and he had a hard time pulling his eyes away from her mesmerizing gaze at the bar. But there had been a twenty-first birthday party at the club that night, too. Mostly, they had lingered shyly in the back of the club, but once Randi and the other bartenders got them liquored up, they had migrated forward, and once Sam was down to his shorts, they were throwing their cash around like rainmakers. It must have been one of them.

And in those same bubble letters, construction paper cut outs spelled out for the world to see the burning question: _"How Much To Go All The Way Sam?"_

The hallway was painfully silent. Sam was vaguely aware that what felt like the entire student body of Scott County High was watching him, waiting for his reaction. Shifting his books on his hip, he calmly spun the dial of his combination lock and popped it open. He set his books down inside, clicked the door shut, and snapped the lock into place. Staring straight ahead and not offering a single one of them the dignity of eye contact, he strode towards the back door. The very same door Lindsay had once tried to lead him out of and into the dumpster. It could all be damned. Lindsay, the pep rally, the game, this school, this state, his life; he didn't care. _Fuck it_. They could win for all he cared. Lowering his shoulder, he slammed it into the door's crash bar and popped the door open, flooding the hallway with streams of light.

"Sam!" Fingers touched his back cautiously. "Stop! Just wait. Who cares about them, man, right? Screw them. Come on. Who cares what they think."

Sam kept walking through the door and towards the parking lot.

"Come on, man. Forget it. Who cares?"

Sam pulled the keys to the pickup out of his pocket, not bothering to stop or look over his shoulder. Defeated, Bobby stopped short and watched as Sam opened the door. Before jumping in, he studied the asphalt then looked up to meet Bobby's stare, green eyes burning.

"You deserve better than her."

He slammed the door shut before Bobby could answer and sped off.

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Reality sunk in when he found himself in the parking lot of the strip club, staring out through the windshield at the empty lot of late afternoon. This was the one place in all of Kentucky that he felt at home. He had friends here in Sharif and Brock and Randi. They looked out for him and took care of him and helped him grow up. When he first got to this place, he had been shy and quiet and awkward, missing his friends in Ohio and Tennessee, and hoping that someone would like him. He had no confidence in himself. Then, everyone at Stallionz had taken him under their wings, as a little brother, a son, or a friend. Now, he was an adult, providing for his family, juggling his time, self-assured, and popular. They had given him everything here.

So why, as he sat on the bench in the locker room, trying to find the will to button up his shirt so he could go out there and take it off again, did adulthood feel so empty? He wondered if this was what the rest of his life was going to feel like. In a few short years, there would be no more music, no more football or baseball, no more school plays, or Saturday afternoons chasing his brother and sister around the park. Just night after night of taking his clothes off, collecting the money, shelling it all out for food and gas and rent, and doing it all again. At sixteen, he was all grown up, and childhood seemed so faint a memory that he couldn't recall what it was supposed to feel like. How many more years did he have left in his life? How many of them would be like this?

"Dude, why are you doing this to yourself?" Sam's head shot up. He thought he had been alone.

"Puck?" he asked, not believing it.

"None other."

"What are you doing here?" Sam asked, too stunned to think. In the last week, it seemed like everybody from his former life was dropping by to pay him a visit in his new one.

"I'm here to save your ass! What did you think I was doing here?"

"I—I don't understand."

Puck, looking younger and less tough than Sam remembered him, was strolling around the locker room, randomly pulling open locker doors and fingering through everyone's stuff. He pulled out a bottle of Brock's cologne and sniffed. A discarded thong on the floor caught his attention, and he poked at it with his sneakered foot.

"Seriously man, stripping?" he turned back to look at Sam, serious for a moment. "I mean, _I _would totally do it. Those older ladies totally dig the Puck Monster. But you? Sam fucking Evans? You're that guppy mouthed kid with the Bieber cut and no game! I totally thought Quinn was bullshitting me so I'd drive all the way down here and she could steal my baby while I was gone. Well, maybe she still is. But seriously! A stripper? What the hell happened man?"

Puck talked a mile a minute, and Sam's brain was having a hard time keeping up.

"Wait. Quinn wants to do what?"

"Not now man. We got a whole four hours to talk about that on the ride home."

"Home?"

"Yeah man. Dude, what the hell? I thought you were supposed to be smarter than me. I'm taking you back home to Lima. Express orders of the supreme queen bitch of the universe."

"Lima?" Sam asked, not allowing the thought room to settle. "I—I can't. I live here now. This is my life now."

Sam felt his voice wavering even at the thought of being back in Lima. That dusty little town where he had lost everything and lived in a dirty motel. Why was it doing this to him?

"Dude, first of all? Stop repeating everything I say. And second . . . _This_ is your life now? Look dude," Puck crashed himself down next to Sam on the bench and threw an arm around his shoulders. "This isn't your life. _This _is throwing your life away. Trust me, I know what it looks like. You like doing this?"

He didn't give Sam a chance to answer.

"I don't think so. What you _like_ is feeling like people care about you and want you and think you're special. I _know_. But lemme lay a little truth down on you right here. You don't mean _shit_ to them Sam. You mean _less_ than shit to them. You're just a pretty set of abs they can use to get off, and when they're done, they don't give a shit how bad it fucks you up. _Trust me. I know_. You need to come back to McKinley with all the people who _actually_ care about you."

Sam sat silently, staring at Puck. He didn't know what he was supposed to say.

"Am I right? About all of it?"

Sam's shoulders slumped under Puck's arm. He was just so deflated, physically and mentally. It was like something just opened up in his mind and what he had done to his life became clear. But he couldn't let Puck see how bad he wanted it. Because he did want it. He did want to go back to Lima and play football and sing in the glee club with all his friends. He did want to give up stripping and sleeping around and all the other sinful things he was doing for money. But if he admitted it, the hot shame of guilt settled in his stomach. He was an adult now, and wouldn't it be shirking all of his duties to the people who counted on him to run away to Lima and sing and play guitar and play ball?

"Yeah," he conceded. "Yeah, you're right. I wanna go back with you, but I just can't. I've got responsibilities here. And even if I didn't, there's no way my dad's gonna let me just leave."

"You wanna get out of here buddy?"

Sam nodded, trying not to let the sliver of hope shine through. _There was no way. Right?_

"Then go get in the damn car. I'm the great Puck Puckerman. Your dad does what _I_ say."

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Sam pressed his forehead against the glass and stared out into the darkening night. The evening air outside was crisp, and the glass was cool and damp against his skin. Sam counted the streetlights they passed, one by one, as they pulled away from the little house that had become home in Kentucky.

For all the good game Puck talked about having some sway with Sam's dad, it was his mom who did most of the talking. After changing back into his zip up hoodie and jeans, Sam led Puck out to the parking lot and they drove both cars out of town towards his family's rental home. When they got there, his mom and dad were surprised to see Puck, but even more surprised to see Sam, who they assumed was at school getting ready for the big game. Puck opened his mouth to speak, and Sam's dad politely but firmly shut him up. With his tail between his legs, Puck wandered off to investigate the living room.

His dad pulled one of the chairs out from the table. "Sit."

Sam obeyed and sat down uneasily. He didn't like this position; it spelled trouble. When he was little, his mom and dad always made him sit while they stood in front of him, towering over him. Now, his mom was leaning against the sink, and his dad was standing, hands on his hips, just feet away.

"What's going on Sam?"

"Dad, I—" he started, choking on his words. "I, um, I don't wanna go to the game tonight, dad, I . . . I wanna go home. Home to Ohio."

Dwight exhaled slowly, running a hand through his greying blond hair. He had been through this what felt like a hundred times with Stevie and Stacy, but Sam?

"This is where we live now, Sam. I have a job here. We have a house to live in here. You're old enough to understand that."

"No, dad, I know. And I'm happy," he lied. "I just, I just . . . "

"Look, buddy, I know this is hard," he started, laying a hand on his son's shoulder. "It's been hard on all of us, but . . . "

Sam's mind started to race away from whatever his dad was talking about. He was completely missing the point. Or Sam hadn't managed to get to the point yet. Either way, if he didn't say something soon, this conversation was going to be over before it started.

". . . And I think you're an adult now and you can understand the kinds of decisions adults—"

"Dad!"

His dad stopped abruptly, shocked by the outburst. Sam, too, was shocked and had to think of something to say quickly while he had the floor.

"Dad, I understand, I swear. I get it about being an adult and all of that and having responsibilities. I just," he lowered his eyes to the floor, ashamed to admit defeat. He had played at the adult game and had lost. "I just miss being a kid."

After a moment passed, his dad's hand came down to rest on top of his head, gently ruffling his hair.

"I know you do kiddo, I know. You've had to grow up much faster than most kids your age, and maybe we've pushed you along too fast, but—"

"Let him go, Dwight."

His dad's head turned slowly. It was nothing more than a shadow of a whisper from his mom, who had been standing quietly at the sink.

"Mary, what . . . what are you talking about?"

"Let him go back to Ohio."

His mom's hard blue eyes locked with his. Her lips were pressed tightly into a line, and her slender arms folded across her chest. She would always be beautiful, but the thin lines of age and weariness were showing around her eyes and her mouth. Though she was speaking to his dad, her eyes stayed locked on Sam, boring into him. Eyes that knew. She _knew_.

Sam held his breath, waiting, watching her every move. She _knew_.

"I think we've been pushing Sam towards adulthood a little too hard, too fast," she said slowly, measuring every word as she studied him. "We're getting back on our feet, we're doing okay, I want him to have the chance to enjoy the last moments of his childhood."

His dad opened and closed his mouth without a word, then nodded his head dazedly. He still hadn't quite absorbed what was happening.

Sam sat frozen as his mom stepped up in front of him and lightly touched his hair.

"I'm going to miss seeing your face everyday baby," she pressed a finger under his chin and tipped it up. "Although I don't understand why the Dairy Queen makes you put that glitter all over it."

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Now, speeding through town in Puck's car, Sam felt a flicker of excitement at the prospect of restarting his life in Lima, but he also felt a tightness in his gut. He would miss his family, there was no doubt about that. But he would still come home to visit every few weekends, and it wouldn't be all that much different than the boarding school he went to before McKinley. What was killing him was the fact that he had been so thoroughly kicked. Like a dog, he was ducking his head and slinking out of town with his tail between his legs, beaten down by some silly cheerleader who had made it her mission in life to make his miserable.

"Puck?"

"Yeah buddy."

"I need you to make one more stop before we go."

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The lights were blinding as Sam snuck into the stadium through a poorly attended gate. The stands were packed and buzzing as the Cardinals warmed up in their end zone, but no one noticed as he walked along the back of the bleachers. It seemed like, without that number six jersey on, he really was nothing to them. He ducked under the bleachers and walked along in darkness.

When he came out the other end, he turned towards the field and stopped where the bleachers met the track. True to form, the cheerleaders were lazing around in circles smacking their gum. Quinn had always said that as soon as you put the Cheerios uniform on and that high pony went up, a smile better be on your face and you had better conduct yourself as a cheerleader. Clearly that sentiment wasn't the same everywhere. Sam leaned against the railings, about twenty yards away, and watched as a pair of grey eyes scanned over to meet his.

Her pink, glossy lips curved up into a smirk, making her freckles look grotesque, as she stalked towards him. She stopped a foot in front of him, hands perched on those boyish hips, smacking that gum through her cheshire smile. Her eyes flashed towards the field, where Bobby was loosening up his arm. Guess she would get that prom queen crown she had been dreaming of.

"Hey Sammy," she drawled. "I heard somebody did some pretty mean things to your locker today."

"Yeah," he nodded, the anger starting to flare in his chest. "Yeah, I saw it."

"Such a shame you couldn't make it for the game today. I understand though, I wouldn't wanna show my face again either if I were you."

The smile never left her lips as Sam dug into his jeans pocket. He pulled out a stack of cash and held it out to her. Her brows creased, and for a moment, her smile wavered.

"What's that?"

"Two hundred dollars."

"For what?" she demanded, folding her arms across her chest.

"You asked how much it took for me to go all the way," he stated, speaking slowly so that the anger in his voice wouldn't break it. "The answer is two hundred bucks. That's how much your mom paid me."

Dropping the cash at her feet, he turned and stalked away without waiting for the satisfaction of her reaction. In the parking lot, there was a car bound for Lima, and he wasn't going to keep it waiting.


End file.
